
Why OpenBazaar Token Doesn’t Exist - SamPatt
https://blog.openbazaar.org/why-openbazaar-token-doesnt-exist/
======
xkarga00
> it would also change the composition of the community from people who agree
> with our core ideals to a group of people who want to see a return on their
> investment.

Yes, it would. Good read, I like the overall reasoning. I can think of some
use cases where an OB token could make sense but I would like to learn more
about OB first.

------
larma
-> [http://doyouneedablockchain.com](http://doyouneedablockchain.com)

~~~
irickt
That link is a slide-show flowchart based on a linked paper:
[https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/375.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/375.pdf)

------
amerine
I don't quite understand the value of any tokens. Can someone sell the idea to
me?

~~~
flunhat
As I understand it, they're a new way of raising money (as Fred Wilson put it,
"disrupting Silicon Valley").

Normally, you sell of portions of your company to investors in exchange for
funding. You get money to run your business, and they get a stake that could
be worth 10x in a few years time if you get acquired or go public.

With an ICO, you can't really sell off portions of your company, because
you'll run afoul of securities laws (I'm speaking of the U.S. here). So what
do you sell? Typically, companies sell tokens that will be users' way of
interacting with their future product. So if you're a decentralized file
storage company, the ICO token is what users will eventually use to buy
storage.

What's exciting for some is that coin offerings provide a way to fund
interesting and meaningful companies even if they are outside of the "venture
capital loop". In some ways, ICOs are more democratic and egalitarian than any
funding system currently available.

Mind you, I don't think ICOs provide any new value whatsoever, and I don't
really see the point, but you asked for an explanation and there it is.

~~~
jaggederest
They're basically presales, if things work out as they hope. If not, they're
worthless.

~~~
qznc
It's worse than a presale, because there is no legal obligation for the
company at all.

