Launch HN: Hexel (YC W18) – Create a cryptocurrency for your community

"Every small business can be tokenized"

My parents own a gift shop (like a Hallmark). Can you give me an idea of how their business could be "tokenized"?

Gift cards? What's the need for decentralized crypto token (given the costs complexity and friction)?

Off the top of my head:

* Distribute tokens to partners (product / gift manufacturers). Partners with vested interest in the success of a company could be much less likely to sever relations as it will hurt their investment.

* Distribute tokens to customers as a type of rebate. Like a loyalty program that encourages patronship.

* Use tokens to vote on what products should be sold. Many gift shops sell pipes and other drug related items. This decision would sink other family oriented shops. What would your customers like?

* Distribute tokens to the locals as an attempt to build virility and community around your shop.

* Distribute tokens to employees as a way to recognize accomplishments. Ever get a few bonus stock from your company for doing good work over the week? Me neither.

* Sell tokens to raise funds.

* Set budgets based on community votes.

The list is endless and these are rough ideas. Look for ways to align business interests and customer interests.

Congratulations. Couple of questions, hopefully I haven’t missed you.

1. Recent SEC activity: is this a threat to you? I see you have been careful to avoid fundraising in your examples, but other people here have come up with that as a use case in brainstorming.

2. Did you look at Stellar? It has none of the disadvantages of Ethereum (ie instant confirms and de minimus fees) and was in part purpose built for your kind of project. I know you both have Ethereum backgrounds but was wondering if you’d considered and ruled out alternatives.

Good luck! I’m keen to see a healthy online micropayments ecosystem so I’m supportive of your project, which could become part of that.

I think it's interesting to standardize these things as ERC20 tokens. It's still very early days, but that allows you to leverage the entire ETH econsystem which is still growing. For example, I could store those ERC20 tokens on my hardware wallet, or phone wallet, send them to others without using a platform's website, etc.

Also, your comment reminds me somewhat of the infamous Hacker News comment when Dropbox posted ("everything you want to do can be done simply with rsync"). Sure, perhaps it's simple for tech folks that know how to build a database and a website that lets you mint and share tokens. But what if you are a popular Youtube vlogger? You either don't know how to do that, don't have time to, or don't want to spend the money. But perhaps you'd use this service, quickly mint tokens, give them away to users, and invent interesting use cases for them.

Personally, I love this idea and think it has great potential. Will anything useful come of it? Who knows -- it's early days. I think the most interesting use cases, if they exist, haven't been thought of yet. I look forward to seeing what people do with it.