Incentives long have been the forte of corporations. Their goal is to move of their products or services. To do so, marketing agencies came up with a wide assortment of ways to incentivize customers.
Obviously, these rewards operated in a closed system. The "payouts" were proprietary, redeemable only with that company. There was no monetary value to them which limited consumers.
Secondary markets did pop up occasionally as a way to trade, say airline miles, for other goods. Nevertheless, this was rather limited.
Cryptocurrency changed the game entirely. Throughout this system, people are able to swap tokens of one kind for something else. Exchanges popped up performing this service.
Of course, now we see Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) being created whereby people can purchase then using many different currencies.
It appears we are also seeing the corporations getting back into the incentive game.
Fiat is going to start paying sustainable drivers with the KiriCoin. Owners of the Fiat 500, the company's first electric vehicle will be able to get rewarded in the token for each kilometer driven.
During normal city driving, New 500 owners will earn around one KiriCoin per kilometer, each worth two euro cents. Thus, driving 10,000 kilometers per year on average, users can earn about €150 ($178) during this period, the release noted.
Get paid to drive.
The coins can be used to to purchase products and services from a marketplace. This will provide a use case for the token. All of it is tied around the idea of sustainability.
Fiat's commercial launch manager for the Fiat New 500, Giorgio Neri, said in the release that the car will sit at the centre of a "mobility project" to reward its customers with cryptocurrency. The Kiri marketplace, he said, is "made up of companies from the fashion, accessories and design industries, all of whom have a fervent belief in sustainability.”
Certainly, over time, this can be expanded to include other projects of similar nature. Perhaps each home with solar gets some tokens for each hour of electricity generated.
This is essentially a similar take on the age old corporate incentive program. While it appears to be a bit expanded with the marketplace, this is not a cryptocurrency that is on a decentralized blockchain. There is nothing that appears to show ownership of what's in the wallet. Thus, just like all centralized companies, there is a 3rd party risk.
What if they decide to do away with the program?
Nevertheless, it is a step in the right direction for cryptocurrency. This is going to expose another group of people to the idea of rewards for activities they usually do. In return for something they are already doing, in this case generating data, they receive tokens. This is a process we in the industry touted over the last few years.
Also, it might trigger others to come up with ways to develop incentive systems based upon tokenization, yet opting for something more expansive. Corporations are always going to think in terms of control. This situation is nothing more than a marketing ploy by Fiat. If they truly wanted to revolutionize the way things are done, they could have created a token on an decentralized chain which gives the users ownership and the freedom to do whatever they want with them.
Of course, there might be taxation issues in some countries since paying customers could be viewed as a taxable event.
Whatever the reasoning is, this is another step in a long walk forward. Exposure to tokens is something that is needed at the moment. Cryptocurrency's success will come from creeping into the mainstream. In other words, people adopting it without truly realizing it.
If people are already doing the activity, they will continue to do so. By tokenizing it, they will be involved sans making a conscious decision to enter. It is a way to back door people.
Ultimately, people are not going to like being rewarded but having those restricted by companies. We are probably a number of years away from that point so we should look at the corporations as simply paving the way for something better down the road. In effect, they are helping out albeit unbeknownst to them.
We are rapidly learning that incentivizing behavior can change lives. The present system only looks at a small window what is targeted. This, naturally, is done to favor the corporations and governments above all else. Those in power end up incentivizing people to give them more power is how it basically works.
Fiat is looking to do something similar. This move is trying to position the company in a frame that it thinks will enable it to sell more cars. There is nothing wrong with this obviously, yet it stops short of what we are doing the cryptocurrency world.
What could be on showcase is how tokenization could actually provide incentives without a loss. In this situation, someone is going to get a haircut for the value of the token. Since there appears to be no public market for the tokens, someone is going to have to cover the cost.
Alas, still operating with the scarcity model.
Cryptocurrency, as we are aware, takes a different approach. If Fiat offered a token on a public chain, the market would establish a value upon it. Any transaction would be treated the same as cash, since it could be swapped into Euros by whatever company is receiving payment on the marketplace. Of course, it could opt to keep it on the books in its native form since there would be a market value for accounting purposes.
Personally, if the industry is truly looking to incentivize sustainability, they should come up with a token that can truly do that. Put it on a public blockchain so it is tradeable. This is going to be able to capture the Network Effect as more people start using sustainable products.
The above picture was a venture that was tried a few years back. Since I have no knowledge of what it tried to do, I cannot comment on the validity of the project.
That said, something that is supported by an industry that is looking at radically changing how humanity does things can see a better path to success. This would cost companies nothing to participate, just join in by accepting the token. An entire economy could spring forth out of decentralized token that started to move throughout the "sustainable" economy.
Alas, that is not really what is happening here. We will see how this endeavor pans out. Perhaps it will be expanded over time, opening itself up to more opportunities.
Either way, it is an avenue to start getting people accustomed to being rewarded for particular activities. And while they are doing that, we are developing applications that can truly offer decentralized solutions down the road.
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