(Brick by Brick)
There are literally thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence these days. They range from Bitcoin and Ethereum , two of the OGs, all the way down to tiny little tribes created on Hive (and other chains), and everything in between. But after being in this space for eight years now, I've found that one of the rarest of traits for these tokens is use-cases. And even rarer than that? Revenue.
This has been the problem with most of the chains out there. Many of them claim to have a reason for their existence (a use-case), but why would any normal person want to buy them? Bitcoin has the first-mover advantage and also has one very important trait: security. It has been in existence for over 16 years now, and has weathered many storms, forks, attacks, and overall FUD, to come out the other side as the most trusted blockchain in the world. Because of that, Wall Street, financial institutions world-wide, and even governments have deemed it safe enough to take large positions. This has obviously led to the price going over $100,000 USD.
Alongside Bitcoin, you have Ethereum and their smart-contracts, which allow DApps that can run DeFi , create NFT's, enable DAO 's and a myriad other uses. Their token is also required to transact on their chain. As another OG, Ethereum has also established itself as a trusted blockchain, and thus has garnered the attention of Wall Street and other financial institutions.
But after that, you start getting into the weeds. Sure, there are large chains like XRP, Solana, Litecoin, Cardano, and others, but it doesn't take long until you get into chains in which very few people would notice if they all of a sudden ceased to exist. And while they all claim to have essential use-cases and unique qualities that Bitcoin and Ethereum might not have, most of them have to overcome inflationary tokenomics and convince thousands of people to buy their tokens faster than they're creating them if they want the price of that token to go up. Otherwise, their market caps keep growing, but investors and speculators aren't making any money. These chains might allow other projects to build on them, but they're not generating any revenue by themselves. So, why buy them?
This is why I believe the $LEO token is so unique, and in the long-run, why it could become very important to the crypto space as a whole. It has gone through a transformation over the last year that has taken it from a fun little blogging and threading site, to an innovative and dynamic revenue-generating token that could reshape how cryptocurrencies are viewed in the future. The "use-case" for LEO has become one very simple thing: to capture value in as many ways as possible and funnel it all into the token.
While most of the crypto world is trying to convince people of their value through intangibles such as network effect and future utility, LEO is actually building and capturing its value in a very tangible way. Revenue. Yes, there are other characteristics of LEO that could be considered "valuable" down the road, but the one they've chosen to focus on here at the beginning of LEO 2.0 is revenue, and it's one of the few cryptos I know of that is actually making money to support its token. In fact, as I'm not an expert on all the different cryptos on the market, it's the only one I know of right now.
Let's count the ways they are doing this.
LeoDex
LeoDex is a cross-chain, permissionless, decentralized exchange where people can swap different cryptocurrencies from one to another, natively in some cases, without having to go through an intermediary. There are fees generated for these transactions, and those fees are used to buy LEO tokens off the market and lock them up forever. They have also tapped into other platforms where these transactions can generate "affiliate fees", which are also used to buy and lock up LEO. As it has only been in existence for about 6 months, the fees have been fairly small, but volume continues to grow month over month at an accelerating pace, and the fees continue to grow as well. With a very intentional focus on building the cleanest, simplest, and most user-friendly UI (user interface) on the market, LeoDex is quickly gaining momentum, growing their daily transaction volume and fees accordingly. And every day, they use those fees to buy LEO at market prices and take it out of circulation forever.
INLEO
INLEO is where it all started. In its infancy six years ago, INLEO was called LeoFinance. It was a blogging platform where people could write articles about financial matters and post them on the platform. The community would then vote on them and LEO tokens would be paid to both creator and voter out of the tokens being minted from inflation. As of INLEO 2.0, that inflation no longer exists. Instead, we now have the SIRP.
SIRP (System Income Rewards Pool)
The SIRP is a pool that buys LEO off the market every day using the funds generated from voters getting $HIVE and $HBD rewards. Because LEO is built on the HIVE platform, curation rewards are paid in both HIVE/HBD and LEO. With the capping of the LEO supply at 30M tokens and the ending of inflation, the SIRP now takes the HIVE/HBD it generates from its curation tools (mainly leo.voter) and uses those funds to buy LEO off the market and distribute it to the daily curators. In other words, more daily buying of the token.Premium
INLEO also has a Premium subscription feature that costs $10/mo. This subscription gives benefits to users in the form of being able to make longer threads, edit threads, change color schemes, and use Markdown among other small perks. It also gets users more curation rewards from leo.voter. If you are at all active, the Premium membership pays for itself over the course of the month. More importantly, the subscription fees are used to...you guessed it, buy LEO off the market and feed the SIRP.
On top of all of this, @LeoStrategy (LSTR) has been created in the mold of Microstrategy. It is designed to work hand in hand with the Leo team to develop financial instruments that will enhance the use and value of the LEO token. #LSTR has one mission: to generate revenue with which to buy LEO off the market and lock it up forever. The metric they use to measure their progress, and ultimately their worth, is Leo Per Share or LPS.
LSTR raised almost $100,000 when they sold 100,000 LSTR tokens at 4.25 HIVE each. It sold out in less than a month. With that money (and other revenue streams) they have now bought and locked up over 2M LEO tokens, never to be sold again. They are in the process of selling another financial vehicle called SURGE, which will generate another $400-$500k that will be used to buy even more LEO off the market. The initial goal is to reach 10M LEO tokens locked on their balance sheet. They've gone from 0 to 2M+ in a month and they continue to pile them in daily. Their LPS is now over 21 (roughly 2.1M/100k) and climbing quickly.
With the supply of LEO capped at 30M and bridges burning small amounts of LEO every day, the float will continue to get smaller and smaller. The only pressure-release point will be the price of the LEO token. When INLEO 2.0 was first introduced and these changes began to be implemented, LEO was trading under 2 cents. It has since reached 25 cents before pulling back to its current price between 12-15 cents. In other words, it has already done and sustained one 10x. It is only a matter of time before the sellers start to dry up and LEO makes another leg up.
This is the beauty of the new tokenomics of LEO. The supply is capped, tokens are actually burned, making it deflationary, and real, hard currency is being generated by the ecosystem with that currency being used to buy LEO off the market and lock it up. Forever.
Leo is a crypto that is constantly capturing real-world revenue and value, and depositing it into its token. It is not asking its users to buy more tokens than are being created. It is not asking its users to buy into a down-the-road use-case that will make them rich. It is not constantly promising mainstream adoption and network effect fantasies. It is not finding ways to pump its price so that insiders can dump into the frenzy. It is simply generating revenue, buying the token off the market, and locking it up. All value goes back into the token and, if you hold that token, to you. Genius.
For six long years I've been writing articles about LEO, and for about the last three I've been saying that I believe LEO's success has become a matter of when not if. Welp, the when is now. The pieces are in place and it has already begun its climb. People dream of going back and buying Microsoft or Google or Amazon or Apple when they were pennies. LEO has a long way to go before it reaches a point it can even be mentioned in the same breath as names like that, BUT there was a point in all of those companies existence where no one would have believed you if you said they would eventually be worth trillions. Everything starts somewhere, and personally, I believe we're at the very beginning of something that, 10 years from now, could be one of the biggest success stories in all of crypto.
A crypto that actually generates revenue for its hodlers? What a novel idea.