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Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#32think of tokens are liquid equity. it's up to the founders to make good on the tokens but that can be written down in notary contracts.
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#33To be honest all of that sounds terrible. Getting a job that compensates me with actual money and using that to buy lottery tickets seems more fruitful.
I almost fully agree. The tricky part is getting access to the lottery tickets you want though.
For most people, the only way to buy equity (lottery tickets) in a private company is to work at one and negotiate for equity compensation.
Tokens are somewhat different I suppose if they are actually listed and tradable right away. That solves the access problem.
But besides access there are also often price discounts granted to employees for both tokens and equity forms of lottery tickets.
So I guess I would say it's not always the right thing to optimize for, but in general working at a company you really believe in can get you access to some very rare lottery tickets.
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#34To be honest all of that sounds terrible. Getting a job that compensates me with actual money and using that to buy lottery tickets seems more fruitful.
you are comparing lottary tickets to the equity of the company you are working for..really? ummm is your bias towards the blockchain so severe?
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#35If you're asking here, you probably don't have enough knowledge to understand if their token has a chance of returning a profit. As other commenters say, most ICO nowadays are scams and risky business as well when it comes to regulations. I would be very very very careful here. But then, the chances that they get some value VS the chances that some other startup's equity gets some value might be higher.
where did you see ICO? tokens for employees are not the same as public offerings
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#36As noted, the best case scenario is that they may, eventually, be worth something. More likely, they'll not be. View it as a perk, like receiving a free lottery ticket, but don't allow that to factor into your "real" compensation.
if the company is worth something the tokens will be too
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#37If you're asking here, you probably don't have enough knowledge to understand if their token has a chance of returning a profit. As other commenters say, most ICO nowadays are scams and risky business as well when it comes to regulations. I would be very very very careful here. But then, the chances that they get some value VS the chances that some other startup's equity gets some value might be higher.
where did you see ICO? tokens for employees are not the same as public offerings
there is no private/public tokens concept in Ethereum. You can have a pre-sale, a locking period, etc. but eventually what you're doing is creating a sub-cryptocurrency and giving some of the token/coin you're creating to people. After that your contract defines a time where transactions are allowed, or you can create a switch, but I see 0 reasons to keep the switch OFF.
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
where did you see ICO? tokens for employees are not the same as public offerings
there is no private/public tokens concept in Ethereum. You can have a pre-sale, a locking period, etc. but eventually what you're doing is creating a sub-cryptocurrency and giving some of the token/coin you're creating to people. After that your contract defines a time where transactions are allowed, or you can create a switch, but I see 0 reasons to keep the switch OFF.
I am an Ethereum developer thank you. I did not talk about private tokens I said the offering is not public. The company can distribute the tokens to their employees as a liquid equity and promise they will redeem them for a certain equity or % of revenue. That's not an ICO
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#39As noted, the best case scenario is that they may, eventually, be worth something. More likely, they'll not be. View it as a perk, like receiving a free lottery ticket, but don't allow that to factor into your "real" compensation.
if the company is worth something the tokens will be too
... because of the company's intrinsic value (assets, etc.)? As in, the tokens would have value based on the company's value, not based on their own utility value in enabling a service or based on trade value in a marketplace?
That would make them uncomfortably close to a security, which is categorically not a good thing unless handled very carefully.
Re: Ask HN: Any success stories with token-based employee incentives?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
if the company is worth something the tokens will be too
... because of the company's intrinsic value (assets, etc.)? As in, the tokens would have value based on the company's value, not based on their own utility value in enabling a service or based on trade value in a marketplace? That would make them uncomfortably close to a security, which is categorically not a good thing unless handled very carefully.
well if the company is distributing tokens it means that it has something to back them up. It can be perks or it can be equity itself. Here in Europe it's possible to tokenize equity. Being a security is not a problem if there is no offering to the public.