Tokens, Tokens and More Tokens – The Control

August 9, 2017

Tokens enable Internet tribes to emerge not in the form of traditional companies as we know them, but instead in a new type of organization called a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). A DAO is best described as a group of people bound together not by a legal entity and formal contracts, but instead by cryptographic tokens (incentives) and fully transparent rules that are written into the software.

There will be a variety of blockchain-based tokens in the future and it’s possible that when regulations are clearly established, traditional assets like stocks and bonds will be tokenized on blockchains. But for now, there are two legitimate types of blockchain-based tokens that bind participants in DAOs:

Usage tokens: A token that is required to use a service
Work tokens: A token that gives users the right to contribute work to a DAO and earn in exchange for their work

If you’re building a network-based Internet product, forming a decentralized autonomous organization, implementing a blockchain-based token into the product and structuring the token as a usage or work token is likely to be a winning business model.

Source: Tokens, Tokens and More Tokens – The Control

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Inside the Secret World of Global Food Spies – Bloomberg

August 7, 2017

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, was one of the first to get on board, just completing a trial using blockchain technology to track pork in China, where it has more than 400 stores. The time taken to track the meat’s supply chain was cut from 26 hours to just seconds using blockchain, and the scope of the project is being widened to other products, said Frank Yiannas, Wal-Mart’s vice president for food safety, in an interview Thursday.

“The problem is the data is only as reliable as the person providing the data,” said Weinberg, who recalls seeing everything in China from synthetic eggs to fake shrimp that still sizzle in a wok. “In most supply chains there is one or more ‘unreliable’ data provider. This means blockchain is likely useless for protecting against food-fraud unless every piece of data is scrutinized to be accurate.”

But blockchain is “light years” away from the system used by the global food industry today, which relies heavily on paper records, said Yiannas, Wal-Mart’s food safety chief. By recording the identity of those who input data into the chain, the technology removes the anonymity that has helped food-fraud to thrive, he said.

The role of humans in recording the supply chain will also diminish, said Yiannas. “More and more of these documents will eventually be captured in an automated way.”

Source: Inside the Secret World of Global Food Spies – Bloomberg

Thanks Frederic

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Tokens Can Be Securities? Even ICO Advisors Agree with the SEC | CoinDesk

August 3, 2017

Allowing investors to participate in the upside of Blockchain Capital’s venture fund, the key advantage the tokens provide is allowing investors to have liquidity long before more traditional venture capital shares mature. If we assume that tokens are an investment, the question naturally arises: When are token-based investing strategies worth pursuing – both for issuers and for potential investors? Channing’s take on this question, from the perspective of the issuer’s advisor, is instructive. First, Argo

Source: Tokens Can Be Securities? Even ICO Advisors Agree with the SEC – CoinDesk

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The End of the ICO Wild West? Blockchain Advocates Weigh In On SEC Report – Bitcoin News

July 28, 2017

“It is now clear that some digital currencies will be viewed as securities, depending on how the tokens or coins are structured,” Spencer details. “Secondly, and more importantly, it is now clear that the regulators and law enforcement in the United States will be enforcing these laws. The pipeline for ICO’s just got a lot smaller.”

Source: The End of the ICO Wild West? Blockchain Advocates Weigh In On SEC Report – Bitcoin News

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Bubble? So What? Token Summit Marks Cryptocurrency’s Revitalization | Forbes

July 26, 2017

Chris Burniske, blockchain products lead at ARK Investment Management, the first public fund manager to invest in bitcoin, explained, “It’s important for us to figure out what’s utility and what’s speculative, because, in times of correction, we will likely compress through speculative value until we hit utility value.”

… fielding an audience question about why a startup would go for an ICO in which it would raise a lot of money but also give away much of the company with a low probability of being able to get more funding, Wilson responded, “If you think about it as just a way to finance your company, you’re not thinking about it properly. The way to think about it is that the token is also the native monetization model for your business, and if you execute your business well, the value of that token should rise as the utility of the product you ship goes up in value.” Then, he said, though you’re giving away a lot of the tokens right away, the value of the tokens you keep should rise substantially and net you a tidy profit. For example, he and Mougayar speculated that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin had a half percent of all Ethers, which at that moment was about $90 million.

Source: Bubble? So What? Token Summit Marks Cryptocurrency’s Revitalization

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