Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is • Hacker News Board

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#21

Post by timoth3y » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 9:37 AM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #9

timoth3y wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH is used only within the blockchain ecosystem. Its greatest utility has been enabling ICOs. OMG and BAT are both interesting proof of concepts, but they are not really operating at any kind of scale. I don't see how they can transition to a stable and growing company. I love the idea of Augur, but they have something like 50 daily users, and that's not a sustainable business. Perhaps my original comment was a bit…

> my point was after a few years of hype about how the blockchain was going to revolutionize everything, and billions of dollars of investment, we should have at least a few real-world use cases. Something beyond the PoC stage. Perhaps the wild claims and shoot-for-the-stars plans prevented most the blockchain startups from capitalizing on where the easy money was (and usually is), enterprise sales. IBM sells blockch…

Absolutely. There is always money to be made selling picks and shovels. IBM, ConsenSys, and others selling blockchain "solutions" to large customers has made a great deal of money over the past two years.

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#22

Post by timoth3y » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 9:43 AM UTC

celdon25 wrote: post #4

timoth3y wrote: post #3

A far bigger story would be an ICO-backed company that did not leave all their backers wondering where their money is. Aside from the startups selling tools and services to the crypto ecosystem itself, does anyone know of an ICO-backed project that has turned into a successful company?

You say that as if the projects are all run by greedy grubby fraudsters. While that is often the case, there are plenty out there who are working day and night on a bare bones income, to keep their projects alive through the market crash. Sometimes, that involves pivoting from a head-in-the-clouds decentralized pipe dream in favor of a viable business, even with customers from outside the industry. Yes, even they are…

> You say that as if the projects are all run by greedy grubby fraudsters

I think you are reading in something that is not there. I have several friends who have run successful ICOs and they all sincerely believe in their vision and all are working very hard.

However, the fact that yet another an ICO-backed token economy has not developed as pitched is not really news. My point was that it would be news if a token economy actually did develop as pitched.

It's an observation. It's not a judgment about the people working on the projects.

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#23

Post by decentralised » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 9:44 AM UTC

timoth3y wrote: post #19

decentralised wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH is used outside of the blockchain ecosystem: https://www.coindesk.com/united-nations-sends-aid-to-10000-s... . BAT has the Brave browser as its adoption mechanism. Personally it's my favourite browser for some months now both on desktop and mobile. OMG is from a company (OmiseGo) who operate a payment network in SE Asia. They are quite big and the adoption of OMG by their traditional service is planned as part of…

The ETH example you mention was a PoC. It did not generate revenue and is not a business. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great, and it might be technically very impressive, but it's not generating money. It's not a business. Omise is interesting in that they clearly have a product and users. They were one of the first ICOs to put a valuation of the tokens at over $1B. Do you have any idea what kind of transaction v…

The setup was a PoC, but the help it generated was real. Axa's fizzy is live and it's a revenue generating business: https://fizzy.axa/en-gb/

Omise hasn't launched it's blockchain platform yet (see Plasma) so their volumes are in local currencies. I understand it's in the MM USD but have no data on them atm.

Mind you that the valuations are often the sales price of the token times the total supply (market cap). This is not a realistic metric imho.

The issue of price discovery is / was addressed in many ICOs using auction theory (English, Dutch, Vicory, etc) but after the sale is completed the market sets the prices. Personally I'm more interested in Token Bonding Curves that guarantee a fixed price along a supply curve.

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#24

Post by justsee » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 10:07 AM UTC

timoth3y wrote: post #19

decentralised wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH is used outside of the blockchain ecosystem: https://www.coindesk.com/united-nations-sends-aid-to-10000-s... . BAT has the Brave browser as its adoption mechanism. Personally it's my favourite browser for some months now both on desktop and mobile. OMG is from a company (OmiseGo) who operate a payment network in SE Asia. They are quite big and the adoption of OMG by their traditional service is planned as part of…

The ETH example you mention was a PoC. It did not generate revenue and is not a business. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great, and it might be technically very impressive, but it's not generating money. It's not a business. Omise is interesting in that they clearly have a product and users. They were one of the first ICOs to put a valuation of the tokens at over $1B. Do you have any idea what kind of transaction v…

Eich's Brave browser and BAT token ecosystem is the only really exciting ICO project in the space at this stage (from my perspective).

While only ~5 million monthly active users that's a) still significant in the crypto (but not browser!) space and b) these numbers are before 1.0 is released in February at which point the first marketing push happens.

I'd go as far as to say Brave / BAT will likely be the poster child for the hoped-for utility wave in the crypto scene: the time is right to challenge the surveillance capitalism model (publishers are very receptive to new funding models now) and a fast, secure, crypto-native browser is an obvious onramp for the general public, and if it works their first experience of 'owning' crypto will be through having earned BAT.

Apart from the security and privacy benefits Eich's model offers, I really like the idea of browser-native tipping, donations and microtransactions and can see how it's potentially a much bigger threat to the dominant players and models than people realise.

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#25

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 10:12 AM UTC

lozenge wrote: post #12

How on earth do they find so many journalists willing to be paid on a promise? I get the psychology of chucking some money on cryptos, but actually working every day for something that isn't money less so.

Real jobs in real journalism earning real money are like gold dust. There's no shortage of people who can write and need work. You only need to onboard [small number]% willing to work for a promise to have a significant writing team.

But more than that - crypto is essentially a kind of late-capitalist faith-based cult founded on the premise of the holy alchemical transforming power of libertarian economics.

So I have a cynical suspicion there's probably significant overlap between the people who settle for the below-bargain-basement-rates offered for content marketing "journalism" (marketing >> journalism) and the people who believe so fervently in crypto they're happy to be paid with a promise.

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#26

Post by nl » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 10:23 AM UTC

timoth3y wrote: post #3

A far bigger story would be an ICO-backed company that did not leave all their backers wondering where their money is. Aside from the startups selling tools and services to the crypto ecosystem itself, does anyone know of an ICO-backed project that has turned into a successful company?

I agree, but I did come across Erasure[1] the other day, which is a blockchain based prediction market.

That makes a lot of sense, because it's a great way to sell insider trading.

Not sure if they are doing an ICO though.

[1] https://erasure.xxx/

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#27

Post by dyeje » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 10:25 AM UTC

tokyodude wrote: post #15

The zigzag podcast was one of the things supposedly going to be funded by Civil. 90% of it was about if Civil was going to work and all the issues they were running into. It was supposed to but help fund them and also be the way people would influence the topics. I stopped listening to it before Civil failed its ICO so I have no idea what their plans are now. https://zigzagpod.com/

Big 99pi fan, but did not enjoy the zigzag guest episodes. Listening to them talk about crypto and startup finances was cringey.

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#28

Post by decentralised » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 10:37 AM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #9

timoth3y wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH is used only within the blockchain ecosystem. Its greatest utility has been enabling ICOs. OMG and BAT are both interesting proof of concepts, but they are not really operating at any kind of scale. I don't see how they can transition to a stable and growing company. I love the idea of Augur, but they have something like 50 daily users, and that's not a sustainable business. Perhaps my original comment was a bit…

> my point was after a few years of hype about how the blockchain was going to revolutionize everything, and billions of dollars of investment, we should have at least a few real-world use cases. Something beyond the PoC stage. Perhaps the wild claims and shoot-for-the-stars plans prevented most the blockchain startups from capitalizing on where the easy money was (and usually is), enterprise sales. IBM sells blockch…

Consider AI which is an academic field for over 50 years and has had billions thrown at it. What's the best we've got so far? Alexa? Watson?

Blockchain is very promising but it's an immature field with plenty of room for growth. Most of the people I've met in the last two years are brilliant scientists and engineers but few are experienced at building products with mass appeal (myself included...).

In 2019 we'll see plenty of developments in privacy (Zk-SNARKs/STARKs) and scalability (Plasma, Sharding) and hopefully we'll be able to prove if Proof of Stake is as secure as PoW. With all these new building blocks, I'm certain there will be second generation blockchain products that are closer to regular users.

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#29

Post by benj111 » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 10:45 AM UTC

I'm confused.

The journalists have been paid their tokens, so theres already tokens in circulation, why does it require civil to make a sale?

Surely that's worse from the journalists point of view because it increases supply of the tokens.

Surely it is also worse for readers. I want to support journalists by buying their tokens, not support Civil by buying theirs.

But that just brings up more questions. The flow of tokens in one way. I give money to journalists to buy their tokens. What do I do with my tokens now? Do I give them back to journalists, maybe in payment for articles???

Re: Civil’s tokenomics has left its journalists wondering where their salary is

#30

Post by logifail » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 10:48 AM UTC

decentralised wrote: post #11

timoth3y wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH is used only within the blockchain ecosystem. Its greatest utility has been enabling ICOs. OMG and BAT are both interesting proof of concepts, but they are not really operating at any kind of scale. I don't see how they can transition to a stable and growing company. I love the idea of Augur, but they have something like 50 daily users, and that's not a sustainable business. Perhaps my original comment was a bit…

ETH is used outside of the blockchain ecosystem: https://www.coindesk.com/united-nations-sends-aid-to-10000-s... . BAT has the Brave browser as its adoption mechanism. Personally it's my favourite browser for some months now both on desktop and mobile. OMG is from a company (OmiseGo) who operate a payment network in SE Asia. They are quite big and the adoption of OMG by their traditional service is planned as part of…

>> ETH is used outside of the blockchain ecosystem

This claim seems a stretch.

How can you not require the basic elements of a "blockchain ecosystem" to be in place in order to actually exchange vouchers based on ETH for food?

>> by giving [refugees] cryptocurrency-based vouchers that could be redeemed in participating markets.

Can anyone explain what value was specifically added to this project by basing these vouchers on a cryptocurrency?