Fairly recently I discovered an in-development platform called meTokens. The basic explanation of their dapp is this: Create a token that represents your products or services, and generate your own market that you control
The slightly more detailed explanation (apologies if i miscommunicate, I'm not super techy) is: Using your public key, and information from your profile on 3box [a decentralized identity system], you can spend an insignificant amount of ETH to create an ERC-20 token which is issued and distributed via a customizable bonding-curve. In doing so, you have access to a peer-to-peer payment system that you can always trust, because it's controlled by you and powered by smart contract technology. While I won't try to explain the intricacies of smart-contracts and bonding curves (you're reading this online, you can pop over to duck duck go and learn more) I will say that I'm happy to be able to join this platform during its alpha, which is suprisingly smooth for a very new dapp. But, this post isn't about meTokens, its about $goose, my collateralized currency. Find out more about meTokens at https://stakeonme.com if you'd like; otherwise, read on to learn about the vast potential for $goose.
How does it have, gain, or keep value?
The circulating supply of $goose is limited to the amount issued by the smart-contract when it receives the required collateral, when more collateral is added to the staking pool, the contract issues the appropriate amount of new $goose directly to the buyer's wallet, and subsequently registers the added collateral as an increase in the tokens value. My chosen bonding-curve pattern was selected to equalize the incentive to HODL or sell. I'll give a brief example, using hypothetical numbers.
Jack (HODL'r A) is a person who supports my digital art and believes in my potential for greatness and success. Hearing about $goose and realizing that for just a few dollars, he can support me as a creator, as well as obtain a potentially valuable investment. So Jack uses the added functionality tying ens to the contract, sending $10 worth of ETH to stakeonme.brucethegoose.eth - Automatically, (assuming a value of .01usd/$goose) Jack receives 1000 goose coins to his crypto wallet. In doing so, Jack has already benefitted, if not profited, as he was the first to buy $goose, which now has a backing of ~10$ of ETH and subsequently rises in value to .015usd each. Jack can now HODL, or if he loses faith and wants to exit can sell the tokens back to the bonding curve at a discounted rate. Since we know him to have confidence in the person the token represents (me) we will assume that Jack, our hypothetical validator, decides to HODL.
Sally (HODL'r B) sees my personal website (which will be added to this article when I build it) and notices that I offer very fair rates for promotional video content and graphic design. She decides she would like to hire me to create promotional designs for an upcoming event hosted by Sally's Tally's, her data analysis firm. (again, this is all hypothetical lol) Receiving her email, I tell Sally I'm happy to provide the content she needs, and we agree on a price of $50usd. I mention to Sally that if she's already aware of, or using cryptocurrencies, that crypto [specifically $goose] would be my preffered method to receive payment. She agrees, and sends $50usd worth of ETH to stakeonme.brucethegoose.eth, and automatically receives her 3333.333> $goose, and waits patiently for me to finish the work she requested.
Unknown to Sally and myself, Jack checks his asset portfolio religiously, and takes notice that his 1000 $goose, the he bought for .01 each, has now risen in value to .025, more than doubling the value of his held coins. Excited, Jack buys another $10usd of $goose, and tells his friend Steve about this new altcoin that has doubled in value at a rapid pace.
Jack's friend Steve is a bit of a loose-cannon in the realm of finance, and decides he can likely make a quick turn around for some profit. So he spends 50$ on $goose, and watches for a price increase to exit in the black.
A short time later, I finish the design work Sally requested, and when she opens her wallet to pay for it (or uses the ''Pay" button located on my profile on the platform) she notices that her 3333 $goose, for which she paid 50$, is now valued at a total of $63, so pays the agreed price of 50 usd value in $goose, and HODL's the remaining tokens, and thinking she may want to hire me again in the future, she decides to buy some more, which drives up the value of Steve's HODL'ing, who decides he'd like to sell his tokens.
seeing that the bonding curve contract has issued a collateral pool and a refund pool, he reconsiders dumping, as he would only receive 50% of the current price point for a refund against the curve. But, being a bright investor, he offers to sell his tokens to his friend jack for only 80% of the current issuance price, which nets him a small profit, and maintains the current supply. Sadly for Steve, I've taken notice to the potential of this new self-economizing concept, and I've staked ETH directly into the collateral pool, with no tokens issued. In doing so, I increase the market value, but not the market supply, increasing the value of all circulating tokens, including my own.
Sorry for the long winded explanation, allow me to get back to why I think this dapp is incredible, and why I will be regularly buying and HODL'ing $goose. It's worth mentioning that the above hypotheticals, while using made up numbers, are based on the factual growth of my tokens. I bought a small amount to offer as bounties and to incentivize others to #StakeOnMe by offering the first 5 HODL'ers an additional 500 $goose from my own holdings. A couple people that support my art, and my vision of a democratized digital media hub, bought small amounts of $goose and received the offered bonus as a show of thanks from me. Not long after, the CEO of meTokens asked my fee for some custom design work. Having agreed on a price, I asked that he pay me in $goose, and the tokens he purchased to pay for my work exponentially increased the value of those I already had, and that a couple other people were HODL'ing.
This creates a vast range of potential uses, as diverse and unique as the people who are turning to blockchain and crypto for solutions to web 2 problems, international payment fees, etc. While I won't make a long-winded list of all the ideas I've already come up with to utilize this dapp, I will list a number of services and fees for which I will accept (and would prefer) payment in $goose.
But can I use it for anything worthwhile?
- Creative media NFT's sold through my OpenSea storefront (not yet implemented, but coming soon)
- Bidding on pre-established services/time slots, that have been tokenized and placed for auction (keep an eye out for an article about this as well!~)
- A number of writing services | Blog articles, creative writing, short stories, character lore, ghost writing | Even web content, copywriting and SEO optimization.
- Web Design
- Art Commissions, promotional content (explainer videos, ad creatives, promo videos, etc.), and a number of other digital art or digital design work
- Promotion of your product, service, startup, or side-hustle across a number of social media platforms, where I have a rapidly growing audience of people interested in crypto, NFTs, blockchain gaming, art, writing, etc.
- Consultation on how you can optimize your website's SEO, better harness social media, grow your audience, or even how your product, service, business could benefit from blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and personal economies.
- Proofreading, editing, website auditing, etc.
- Physical prints of my digital art on a number of different items (canvas, tapestry, blankets, apparel and more)
- Custom designs for the products listed above (potentially as 1-of-a-kind items)
- Digital Assets I've created or own distributive rights to including E-books, Video Tutorials, Software, Wordpress plugins, creative assets, and even some web based SaaS
- As I continue to improve and expand my skillset, the services and products for which I'll be accepting payment in $goose will continue to improve as well.
- Meme-Marketing (yes, I said meme-marketing, i also had a 'WTF' moment when first hearing the term, but its actually a very effective engagement tactic. Picture an average person [you maybe] scrolling through facebook mindlessly. How many times do you think that person shares an ad that they see in their feed? How many times do you think they share funny or topical memes? Now do the math lol.
**Additionally, while the market grows, should you be interested in acquiring more $goose, you could offer your products and services with the option to pay in $goose as well, thereby increasing the value of your already held tokens when someone buys more against the bonding curve to pay for their purchase, which in turn increases the value of their own tokens and gives them incentive to buy/hodl/trade as well!~
The use cases behind this new self-economizing, self-controlled monetary system are endless. When taking into consideration the ease of use and rapid adoption of defi, it's safe to assume that getting a personalized token listed on a number of exchanges would be simple and timely. Certainly when the tokens are collateralized by ether and stimulate their own value. With this in mind, it's begs consideration of the potential market value increase through trade volume and speculation.
For another example that's very specific to my individual situation. As a digital artist, I'm fairly new to actually allowing people to see my work; to say nothing of beginning to tokenize and sell it. My audience is growing quickly and steadily, as is my involvement and presence in the web3 ecosystem, and social media platforms to which cyber anarchists and crypto nerds are quickly migrating. At the same time the NFT ecosystem is VERY RAPIDLY expanding, finding new use cases, and seeing wider adoption. [While I won't namedrop or disclose information that is not yet publicly available, I can say with 100% that one passionate collector has spent upward of 800 ETH on art NFT's alone, as reported by one NFT art platform that this person has purchased from (of which there are several) and this person has plans to build continue building the most valuable NFT collection in existence.] As a couple of other examples of the NFT space - A Los Angeles based company has begun a system of "tokenized real estate" wherein the company buys a property eg - 1234 Cherry Hill Lane - then creates 1000 1234 Cherry Hill Lane tokens. Everyone who buys, earns, trades or otherwise acquires 1 token is then considered to have .1% ownership of the property, for which they will receive .1% of rental income or sale price of the property for as long as that token remains in their wallet. Again, too many examples to list when considering the currently established, the alpha/beta stage, and the concepts and possibilities coming to bear while the world rapidly becomes more and more digital.
The example I intended to make would be this. Assume that you, at some point in time, decide to #StakeOnMe in the amount of $20, and simply HODL and wait. Across the web, and even within the metaverse of VR, digital real estate, and blockchain/NFT powered gaming, I continue to promote the projects I respect, and as my audience grows, so does demand for my time and my artwork. Over the course of weeks or months, multiple people decide to either buy my NFT creations or hire me for an offered service. Most often, I request payment in $goose, therefore growing its awareness as well, and repeatedly increasing its market value with each purchase against the bonding curve. At the same time, since I am immensely appreciative of the people who support and hold confidence in me, I have quietly airdropped some exclusive art NFT's to the wallets containing $goose. Over the weeks or months you've been HODL'ing you've thought very little about the $20 you spent in support of a passionate nobody with big dreams and admirable ideals. You decide to consider buying some more; and upon looking into your wallet you see that your 20$ investment now holds a collateralized value of $150, and you have a limited edition artwork nft that has it's own potential value, and you feel damn good about your small investment and contributing to someone's success. While I realize that a 750% pump in a few weeks or months seems outrageous, I invite you to be proven wrong by these two photos, taken ~24 hours apart. Notice the change in USD value of the unchanged 5858 $goos.
All in all, while it is always necessary to hold a healthy bit of skepticism in the event of human error, global economic meltdown pt.2 of 2020, and my untimely departure from the Earth after having a scuffle with some Murder Hornets, I think that a: this project is great, it gives very simple-to-use access to a sustainable personalized token with which you can do what suits you, your audience, and your customers. b: NFTs are the rabbit-hole I'm traveling down, but the crypto economy, digitalization of assets, and decentralization of finance, governance, and user generated data/content etc. are going to continue growing and seeing more widespread adoption as the world's governments fail to protect and serve the world and its people, and as the money machines continue to go B-R-R-R-R-R. I'm won't speak for anyone but myself, but as the new internet, the sharing economy, and the internet of value continue evolving (mostly on or adjacent to the Ethereum Network protocols) I feel much better about having $goose stored on an immutable computing protocol than I would about having dollars in my pocket.
Thanks so much for your time~ Feel free to comment, or to get in touch with me directly with any questions, concerns, feedback, etc. Time for me to get the flock outta here~
Yours in decentralization,
Bruce T. Goose | Founder/CEO of The Nifty Pride Foundation
https://thegoosenest.site