I think it's more a cultural thing. Not everyone is financially motivated, they want the recognition. A challenge coin is a tool for doing that. It's in a similar vein to a medal.
It might have been misjudged in this instance however, but they're a thing in military circles so I can imagine how it seemed like a good idea.
Tbh I'd have been really pleased, but I can appreciate that's not universal.
If you are in the military, you can use challenge coins to get yourself free drinks. The idea is that when everyone is at a bar, the guy or gal with the challenge coin from the highest ranking officer never has to pay for rounds of drinks.
I've never seen a civilian use one. We don't spend much time in bars, and the feeling I get is that if I did try to whip one out in the presence of uniformed personnel -- a challenge that I would almost certainly win, given who this coin was from -- that would be a tremendous faux pas.
So at best, this is the sort of object that carries some real meaning in a very particular social context among a very particular set of people, but that meaning doesn't carry over to anywhere else. Like baseball or Pokemon cards, I suppose. How would you feel about your boss switching out Christmas bonuses for packs of World of Warcraft cards?
How long are challenge coins "valid"? If someone had a challenge coin from Eisenhower (not sure those exist, let's pretend they do) would that person essentially always win, forever?
From my weird lay understanding, it's somewhat similar to childhood games where people would try to determine who had the "coolest" Pogs [1]. There are multiple "axes" that determines which challenge coin "wins": highest rank associated, most interesting challenge involved (some coins represent specific deployments or activities or actions), perceived rarity (there only three of the coins ever made), etc. To some extent the challenge coins serve what medals/badges always have: an excuse to tell a cool story, maybe brag about something. Similarly the "free alcohol" rules follow the same general principles of "that's a really cool story, I owe you a beer for it", just reduced to simple evocative coin form.
Which "axes" are in play, and who "wins" (or ties, a lot of the rule variations I've heard are set up to optimize towards ties; the most common challenge is just whether or not the other person has a challenge coin of any sort, not necessarily trying to figure out which wins if both people have coins on them) varies a lot between groups.
Also, challenge coins have seeped into some parts of lay culture, especially bar culture (given that alcohol has always been the big bet, it shouldn't be a surprise). For instance, the liqueur Fernet has its own challenge coins that bartenders tend to challenge each other for free shots of Fernet. (Bars try to keep one in reach of the bar at all times in case the bar is challenged, and the number of people that have them that have them that aren't themselves bartenders is supposedly kept quite rare.) https://talesofthecocktail.com/history/part-family-behind-sc...
Public can be difficult to award people without running afoul of ethics rules. You're suprisingly constrained on what, and to what extent, you can award with congressionally appropriated funds. Sometimes people just eschew the whole idea because it's so difficult.
It’s a big thing among some Infosec people who get a rise out of the cyber warrior nonsense.
One guy I know has enough of these things you’d think he was a navy seal, mostly from training sessions. His actual job is monk-like copying/summarizing of NIST documents and CVEs.
