NOI DI MERCATO LIBERO NE PARLIAMO DA ANNI. QUESTO BREVE ARTICOLO SPIEGA IN DETTAGLIO COME UNA QUALSIASI MINI ATTIVITA' POSSA FINANZIARSI GRAZIE ALLE CRIPTOVALUTE!
E POI DICONO CHE E' UNA BOLLA??? LA BOLLA E' QUELLA DELLE BANCHE CENTRALI. QUA SI STA CREANDO RICCHEZZA VERA E FATTA PER RIMANERE
Laundry Tokens
Imagine
we are industry experts in providing laundry services, and we publicly
announce a plan to open a new chain of laundry shops, where the
development will be funded through an ICO process. The tokens would be
issued at a price of 1 Laundry Token (LTX) for $1 and will enable
holders to gain access to laundry services in all laundry shops that are
a part of the new chain. However, we will only ever issue 1 million
LTX, thereby creating artificial scarcity.
In addition, this will be done through an independent third party to
ensure we are unable to defraud the system i.e. the independent third
party will ensure that we cannot issue more LTX and or recall LTX
already issued to people, and ensure the LTX already issued will be
honored for their intended purpose. Furthermore, imagine that the LTX
price can go up and down based on supply and demand, and that they are
easily transferable between users at the fair market rate. Under the
efficient market hypothesis, the value at which the tokens are exchanged
in a sufficiently liquid market will capture all the market information
relating to the underlying project. The theory is that as we issue the
LTX token and use the funds to build the laundry business, the value of
the LTX will go up (on anticipation of a successful launch) and so LTX
holders will enjoy the benefits of capital gains. On the other hand if
the project begins to struggle and bad news enters the media, the value
of the LTX will begin to decrease and LTX holders will suffer capital
loss.
In
order to ensure that the economics of the LTX works as an appcoin the
issued tokens need to be convertible for their intended purpose of
receiving laundry services i.e. holders should be able to take their LTX
to any of the shops in the laundry chain and pay for required services.
LTX can be divisible into subunits, but for simplicity in this example
when a single LTX token is redeemed in a shop it is converted to laundry
credits equivalent to the market rate in USD. Therefore, if 1LTX is now
being traded for $50, then on redemption at the shop the holders can
gain access to $50 of cleaning credits e.g. they can clean five jackets
where the cost of cleaning is $10 per jacket. As the value of the tokens
goes up, on the open market, holders can gain more laundry credits “for
free” on redemption i.e. more jackets cleaned for the same units of
tokens.
A token’s Monetary Policy means the model for supply release and the cap
on total supply i.e. how many tokens are issued and how often, and what
the total number of issued tokens will be. A capped and well-controlled
supply release increases the chances of a small increase in demand
driving token prices higher. Normally the monetary policy would be
pre-defined as part of the issuance strategy, where a fixed number of
tokens are created and issued. However, even though there is a total
supply cap the issuer would only distribute a certain fraction of the
available tokens to raise a fixed amount of capital for executing the
business plan. The remaining tokens are then held in an “escrow” type
service to finance operational costs or future connected projects. For
example, in the previous case of the laundry LTX ICO the supply was
capped at 1 million tokens, and then we may only distribute 500k LTX
tokens and keep the remaining in an escrow account, which we can use to
cover costs of running the business and or expanding laundry shops in
the future. The escrow account would likely have some form of
access/usage controls to provide comfort to investors that the tokens
held will not be dumped (sold in one go), in turn causing a price crash;
or they may be locked for a fixed period to allow sale in a controlled
manner over a “sufficiently long” period of time. All of these aspects
fall under the monetary policy of a token as they are related to
directly managing the supply of tokens in circulation, and is a
relatively well-understood concept in cryptocurrency.
Fiscal Policy
It
is also important to understand and define the commercial benefits the
ICO participants gain from holding tokens, beyond just the capital gains
related to scarcity. This point is a key one, and one that is least
talked about and or understood, but is just as important as a token’s
monetary policy. In the case of the laundry ICO earlier, as we are
ultimately developing a business we want to maximize the value being
created so we will potentially offer laundry services in the issued LTX
but also in USD fiat currency (and even in other cryptocurrencies BTC,
ETH and ETC). Linking a commercial benefit (e.g. discounts) with token
usage means customers would be more likely to access our services
through LTX rather than any other form of payment, this is especially
true if there is a large supply of tokens in circulation (resulting in
less scarcity).
To
drive continued customer interest in buying LTX, as issuers we can
ensure that LTX holders always gain some benefits/discounts on the
services offered e.g. rather than cleaning costs for a jacket being $10
the LTX holders may only pay $8. This discount may be adjustable so we
can manage commercial benefits based on levels of external competition,
changes in operational costs and other unknown factors. This becomes a
way of managing the flow of the issued token without taking drastic
actions related to monetary policy e.g. increasing/decreasing supply
from circulation or even hoarding/dumping tokens. This control of flow
of tokens and impacts on aggregate supply and demand is a form of
“Fiscal Policy”. The fiscal policy actions highlighted in this paragraph
are not directly connected to managing the supply of tokens in
circulation but rather connected to managing the flow of tokens through
indirect economic incentives.
One
example of a potential use for such a fiscal policy mechanism is that
an issuer can propose to increase the commercial benefit (e.g. cleaning
discount in LTX), which will increase aggregate demand of the tokens
(from D1 to D2 in diagram below). Such an action can then be combined
with monetary policy decisions, for example as the aggregate demand of
the tokens increases through the fiscal policy decisions, the issuing
company could then also release further tokens, that may be held in
escrow, increasing the total supply in circulation (from S1 to S2 in
diagram below). This combined increase of supply in circulation and the
demand due to increased commercial benefits may have a minimal impact on
the current market price. This simple thought experiment can be
visualized as in the following diagram:
This
model, taking into account monetary and fiscal policies (which are
fundamental in macroeconomics), and applying a framework, which allows
them to interact, and effect aggregate supply and demand, shows how
critical these policies are to understanding ICO structure, appcoins,
and their impact on future issuing projects/companies and the capability
for value creation and risk causation for token holders
Supply and Demand
As
seen above, from a monetary policy and fiscal policy perspective, the
balance of Commercial Benefit and Supply Scarcity factors is critical in
planning the issuance of a sustainable appcoin and the impacts on a
business (see the diagram below). The economic analysis for such a
balance can be modeled through assessing the supply and demand surfaces
based on these explanatory factors. As a thought experiment it is viable
to assume that highly scarce tokens with very high commercial benefit
(e.g. offering steep product discounts) may result in hyper deflation of
their value, leading to a hoarding mentality, as there will be a view
of “falling prices” or being able to purchase more with the same tokens
if they delay redeeming. While this may seem like a positive effect, as a
higher purchasing capability of a token implies higher returns for a
company when they sell a redeemed token back into the market, such a
scenario also has the potential to detrimentally impact a business and
its cashflow. One of the most obvious impacts is that whilst a hoarding
mentality will result in people delaying the use of their tokens,
accordingly customer perceptions of using fiat currency to pay for
services could cause them to feel like they are getting a worse deal
compared to buying with a token, hence driving them to also delay their
purchase, or using substitutes and or competitive products/services.
This business slow-down will, in turn (assuming an efficient market),
lower the value of the token until an equilibrium point is reached.
However, the equilibrium point may not be what makes this a highly
profitable business. On the other hand, tokens with low scarcity and
minimal commercial benefit may be of little interest to users either as
“investments” or for access to services. Evidently there is a level of
complexity here that is very challenging to assess without some historic
and forecast sales revenue/cost data related to a company’s core
product or service and its customer profiles.
The Optimal Model
From
an issuer perspective, as the tokens are redeemed by holders for their
relevant commercial purposes, for which they may receive company credit
(e.g. coat cleaning in the laundry example) the company can resell the
token in the market at the current market rate. Using this approach the
company can recover operational costs and generate profits. This cycle
of token purchase and redemption by customer and resale into the market
by issuer can continue, meaning the appcoin tokens would become a form
of money that is only locally accepted by the issuing company. From this
context it becomes apparent why the above framework considering
monetary and fiscal policies and their interactions makes sense, as “a
long line of research emphasizes that separating monetary and fiscal
policies overlooks policy interactions that are important for
determining equilibrium” [15].
As
an appcoin model, the above may be the most viable basic structure
making business and economic sense. Conversely, an example of a
nonsensical token structure would be a 1-to-1-access model wherein the
issued tokens are just for single-use only, then their market value
would intrinsically be capped at the value of substitute offerings. For
example, if 1 token represents 1 unit of service, and competitors charge
$10 for the same service (all other things being equal), then it is
irrational for token purchasers to pay more than $10 for one token on
the open market (assuming no commercial discount for token holders).
In
addition, issuers must account for the time it takes to sell the token
in the open market after being redeemed by a holder for its intended
commercial purpose. In a sufficiently liquid market this may be
“instantaneous”, thereby minimizing the risks associated with price
volatility. From a commercial perspective these risks could be severe
because hoarding tokens to control market supply may backfire if token
value falls. In this scenario the issuing business may not be able to
sell the tokens it holds to recover costs incurred delivering the
services in return for redeemed tokens. While risks can be hedged if
appropriate instruments/services are available, the optimal model would
see smaller companies refrain from hoarding, instead preferring to sell
in sufficient quantities to at least recoup costs. This is also the
model used by blockchain miners.
Leading
on from this is the challenge of “retiring” tokens, for example if an
issuing organization at some point in the future decides to discontinue a
particular product/service, or move away from a token model. In this
scenario the token holders can effectively be seen to have some form of
right or vote on the future of the product or service offered by the
company! This challenge becomes greater than just a simple vote because
as the value and or usage of these tokens increases, the holders will be
seen to have more influence over company decisions. The optimal and
simplest approach would be for the issuing company to buyback the tokens
from holders at the market rate; a process which must be managed
appropriately so that any announcements and buyback processes will not
result in liabilities for the company. In this context, it must be noted
that retiring any form of “money or security” from circulation (if
these appcoin tokens are thought of as such) is a huge challenge. On a
much larger scale this is evident in the issues that occurred in India
with the heavy-handed banknote demonetization strategy in 2016 [14].
In the case of an appcoin the scale would be much smaller, but as a
company grows and token values and or usage increases the challenges
could be similar, especially when the tokens represent some form of
access to a product or service that people have become attached to, or
is critical to operations for which they still require some form of
support from the issuing company (think Windows XP). A prudent way to
manage this would be to have a buyback/demonetization strategy as part
of an appcoin ICO, and even some functionality to manage this
autonomously in a controlled manner.
Viable and non-Viable ICOs
Executing
an ICO, issuing appcoins and managing the micro/macro-economic impacts
on the business, key stakeholders and the market will mean companies in
the future may not only need a CFO but likely also a Chief Economist, as
running such a firm will be akin to running a small country! This will
be more of a problem for a startup or a fledgling company, but maybe not
so for an ICO executed by a larger firm with a more established product
or service.
If
a large, established company e.g. Spotify, Netflix, and even PornHub
(which is probably the most likely considering the history of
pornography and its influence in driving the uptake of new innovative
business models [15]),
executed an ICO and issued an appcoin, for managing operating costs or
expansion of services, it may make commercial and economic sense to do
so. In this scenario the economics can likely be modeled with an
acceptable level of confidence due to good availability of sufficient
historic and forecast operational and financial data. Therefore, an
appropriate token structure can be setup and deployed for the ongoing
benefits of participants and sustainability/growth of issuer’s business
model.
In
a startup context an appcoin ICO would likely only make sense
commercially/economically for a series A (or greater round) when a
decent product-market fit has been defined and scale up capital is
required. From this context it can be seen how an appcoin ICO model may
even be hugely disruptive for later stage venture capital firms,
contrary to their current views [16]!
In
either of these cases, for established companies and or scale-up firms,
the key question then is why use an ICO on a public blockchain if the
appcoin tokens are not securities? If appcoins are not securities and
they can be easily and widely marketed to retail investors, and the
token life cycle can be managed without the challenges of complex client
money and asset rules, why use a smart contract blockchain to execute
an ICO? Why not just use cryptocurrency payments (or any form of
payments) with the appcoin mechanism managed through a centralized
system?
Some Legal Aspects
No
discussion on ICOs would be complete without providing some legal
points of views. We will touch on some of these here and go into more
depth in an upcoming paper, especially regarding those less talked about
aspects related to tort law and negligence.
In
the laundry example, ultimately if we issued the LTX for our laundry
project we may be raising risk capital. Why? Because the economic
reality of this is that people are giving us money now to execute a
project where they will gain some benefit in the future, and this
benefit goes beyond a simple one off product or service. Unlike
reward-based crowdfunding, such as a Kickstarter campaign, the upside
for an ICO participant is not limited to receiving a single product or
service. An ICO participant is essentially buying into the on-going
commercial viability and success of the issuing company, and
participants anticipate that the value of the token(s) they own will
increase, in which case they can either earn a greater financial return
by selling the tokens (capital gains) or gain access to more services at
some discount (commercial benefits). Either way an ICO participant’s
expected returns may be seen as linked directly to the pooled funds of
the ICO and efforts of the issuer to use funds in executing the project
and ensuring viability of the ongoing business. It is this expectation
that drives participants to not only pay for a one-off product or
service (as they may on Kickstarter) but to buy into an ongoing
commercial proposition that is yet to be developed and commercialized,
and all for the expectation of some form of “unlimited”
(explicit/implicit) financial gain.
Due
to such complex economic realities of ICOs and the resulting appcoins,
it seems like these are a new form of asset class. If they do turn out
to be a new type of primitive security, then a decentralized model for
administration may be viable to ensure compliance with key client money
and asset rules. However, this is a discussion for another time.
While
the above complexities are related to statutory/policy/legal
challenges, if an ICO is seen as a public offering and the resulting
appcoin is considered a security, other less obvious challenges could
result from common law issues related to contract or tort violations.
These may become increasingly relevant as issuing companies expand and
become profitable, at which point they would become bigger targets for
consumer class action lawsuits. There may be legal risks related to
issues seen as violations of the ICO terms of contract, or other forms
of negligence directly linked to the losses suffered by token holders
e.g. if a price plummets to zero based on an issuers perceived
negligence. Such legal recourse may also become increasingly attractive
as an issuing company changes its business model, becomes successful,
and the tokens then become less relevant. This means that in the future
VCs/investors/acquirers will likely need to perform appropriate due
diligence related to such risks, thus impacting possible valuations for
growth companies.
Final Thought
We
must highlight that while the overview provided in this work is
speculative and dares to touch on things through a “thought experiment”
approach (a physicists and economists best friend) it is based on sound
financial, commercial and economic reasoning. The fact is that ICOs and
appcoins are a new phenomenon and while we may not have the benefits of
the Pachinko Parlor industry to look outside of our little bubble and
see what could be possible, we have our imagination, logic and
intellectual honesty to determine what is happening in this industry and
where it can go.
Many
are trying hard to believe, as well as convince others, that ICO tokens
are just like reward based crowdfunding or (absurdly) “paid API’s” [17]
in order to distance them from financial securities and or other forms
of economically complex financial innovations, only for the purposes of
abstracting legal and regulatory burdens. This may result in some
short-term gains but the chances are they may be missing a much (much)
bigger opportunity or even delaying a ticking time bomb.
ECCO PERCHE' QUESTA CRIPTOECONOMIA E' SOLO ALL'INIZIO
Urca, la faccenda si ingrossa oltre ogni aspettativa:
Putin Meets With Ethereum Founder To Create National Virtual Currency Vladimir Putin recently met with the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, to discuss the potential use of Ethereum as a national virtual currency, one which would help Russia diversify its economy beyond oil and gas.
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Urca, la faccenda si ingrossa oltre ogni aspettativa:
Putin Meets With Ethereum Founder To Create National Virtual Currency
Vladimir Putin recently met with the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, to discuss the potential use of Ethereum as a national virtual currency, one which would help Russia diversify its economy beyond oil and gas.
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