I agree!

Hi Will, I think I've been going along the same journey as you. I also eventually bought both Bitcoin and Ethereum, but not because I believe they will necessarily last the test of time (but I'm open-minded on this), but just because I can make money from them. And I think many people share this view too. The problem with technology is that it can change very fast and what's here today won't necessarily be around tomorrow. But who knows maybe it will? Bitcoin hasn't been around long enough to past this test in my personal view. These are the other 'things' I'm yet to be convinced on and find difficult to draw conclusions on one way or the other: 1. I still get the feeling the entire crypto space has only flourished since the GFC because central banks have destroyed yield forcing people to look elsewhere to make a decent return (i.e. going out on the risk curve). Thus everyone has been hopping on the crypto bandwagon because of the big 'potential' gains. My big question, and one that's unlikely to get answered until it happens, is what will happen to the crypto markets if we have a major financial meltdown or prolonged bear market where stocks grind lower year after year. And yes, it could happen, see Japan in 1989. Eventually the current market madness will end, could be weeks, could be years, but when it ends it could really end. My guess is people would just do what all (well most) humans would do in that scenario and panic sell. And in such a high vol instrument? Not sure crypto will be the white knight that saves the world? Who knows. Exponentially can work on the upside, but it also works on the downside. And when the intrinsic value is zero that will be the true test of Bitcoin's store of value. 2. What do you do if something goes wrong? Who do you call to fix a problem? How do you do this in a decentralized world? Where would blame lie? No one ever answers this question. The best answer is "well you can buy insurance now" - laughable. Again, this ties back to the need for regulatory frameworks to handle this situation. I wouldn't want to be a lawyer in court trying to convict an AI algorithm that's dynamically mutating in real-time. Good luck with that one. 3. Are community tokens really just moving towards the monetization of a human being? 4. In the decentralized world you are relying on an army of people to run nodes in the network. How well will this work out in practice over the long term? I could run a node for all kinds of networks, but unless I'm financially rewarded for doing so why would I? What's the incentive? I could turn off my machine, or dump the networks I don't want for ones that I do. People are fickle and what's hero today can be zero tomorrow. That's even more relevant in today's exponential age and social media driven world. Sentiment can change in an instant. What could actually happen is the exact opposite in that it could make things more centralized again? As ever, happy to be enlightened and educated! Cheers.

Hi Daniel, Great post, thanks! Yes, I agree with your legal assertion, as I can see this all being a massive hotbed for fraud unless there is some kind of regulatory framework, but its also early days yet. Any system based solely on trust is doomed to failure (IMHO). And that's not just me being overly cynical, its based on personal experience and the fact we are only human. How many politicians have gone into office wanting to change things for the better only to be consumed by the corruption of how things actually work. To quote a line from a Clint Eastwood movie "absolute power corrupts absolutely". Your point on gaming I do totally get. I have a 9 year old who spends much time on Roblox so I see your observations playing out daily. Having said that my daughter would rather spend her money on real things rather than digital things, at least at the moment. Your point re decentralized tokens I can also relate to. So what you are saying is that tokens can live and persist outside of what may have originally created them, providing potential longevity so long as the token continues to hold value, and your SkyMiles is a good example so long as they are transferable and don't have restrictive expiry dates. My only counter argument to that point is that voucher providers typically provide an expiry date as its in their interests to 'force consumption'. I've also been looking for some analogies. One I think is the SaaS business model. As a software provider I can build and release a software product that is consumed by paying subscribers. In this case my 'token' is the credentials to access that software. So my community is my subscriber base. But to Raoul's point how do the subscribers share in my company's growth and success? Well I have a roadmap and deliver a regular stream of new features so by them paying the monthly subscription they are benefiting from continued use of the software. If I put the subscription price up I receive that increase, I do not share it with my subscriber base because I am already delivering increased value every month with new feature releases. I cannot see why I would ever tokenize and free-market my access credentials (monthly subscription fee), it just doesn't make sense (at least to me). As ever, happy to be enlightened and educated! Cheers.

Many thanks Nymann, Daniel, Will for your feedback - I'm hear to learn and educate myself from those more knowledgeable than myself. I'll reply to your posts Daniel and Will separately as you raise great points. Just for background, yes I am a boomer, and been in the tech industry for decades (MS-DOS 1.0 and the Sinclair ZX80 onwards). Although I am very open-minded I sometimes think this can act as a barrier because I have accumulated much experience over the years and learnt many lessons. As a person once told me 'question everything'. If you have an idea that can withstand all the detailed probing and scrutiny, then success will take of itself. Its definitely a philosophy that's worked well for me over the years. Ok, so I've been looking into Rally after having re-read Raoul's piece for a 3rd time in an attempt to 'get it'. So I go onto the Rally website and look at the list of creator coins. At the top of the list is a Japanese football player by the name of Keisuke Honda. He even has his own wiki page. On the Rally overview page it states "By buying and holding $KSK you are supporting the creator and participating in their economy. As a $KSK holder you are eligible for creator benefits and $RLY rewards.". Ok, so can I buy into a slice of his future earnings just as I would a traditional stock by owning his token? Is this how it works? Nowhere on the site can I find any kind of contractual obligations to show how I would directly benefit from being part of his economy, e.g. if I 'owned' a slice of him would I get a slice of any big deal he pulls off should he discover the next Ronaldo or Messi, or revenue from his events streaming business? Alternatively, in such a scenario would his coin just go up because of the 'perceived value' he's created even though I cannot get a direct share of his earnings? In that case for me to benefit in his economy I would have to buy his coins in the hope he does something that increases his 'perceived value'. So it would be like owning a traditional growth stock that pays no dividends? Is this how it works? Is all this just about the monetization of a human being's future 'potential'? Or, if you forget the monetary side of it, you buy his coins on the expectation he provides you with some kind of unique 'thing' as a reward for holding a number of his coins, e.g. a front row seat to a live gig or something? So its more for fans rather than investors in him as a person? Ok, I can see how this might work....but why do tokens have to have a monetary value? Why not just work on the basis of collecting points/tokens when say you attend one of his events? After you've attended 5 events you get a front row seat at the next gig etc.?. All this buying and selling of tokens requires a middle man (who conveniently take their cut) which I would have thought goes against one of the core themes behind crypto in general and that is to remove the middle man. So just swapping middle man 'A' for middle man 'B' then in the digital age? There are plenty of websites that allow people to swap tokens/points/vouchers without a middle man taking a cut. Again, am I missing something here, or is this just a way for tech to muscle in on the 'middle man market'? It just seems all so unnecessary. With owning a traditional stock there are regulations, financial reporting etc. that all underpin and (hopefully) paint a true representation of the stock at a point in time. For this to work with creators wouldn't you also need a similar framework as a proof/evidence mechanism? If not the scale for potential fraud is off the charts. With the ability to create anything digitally these days you could literally invent a person and their history and use (abuse) the power of social media to enact fraud on a massive scale. Perhaps the biggest weakness in all this is that its a system based on trust, or which can be fabricated. One thing I've learned well over the years is that trust is earned never given. So, are my assertions above correct?, have I completely got the wrong end of the stick?, or am I again missing something, because I still don't quite 'get it' yet? Interested to get your thoughts.

I am mostly where you are Steve R. NFTs are a "bridge too far" for me at the moment. Unless just a couple of years ago I was "anti-Bitcoin" and made a few comments on here about gold vs BTC. However, I have now got 12% of my investible wealth in crypto although currently breakeven on value due to late entry. I find it difficult as a mid date Boomer to buy into all the "influencer" and decentralized digital arena that has become so much of RVT's content in the past couple of years. However as a very keen observer of geopolitics and current events, it is clear to me that the 2020s may indeed be a watershed in the world economy and human history not seen for almost 100 years. Consequently I am trying to keep an open mind in opportunites which can bolster my just entered into retirement. Your comments and Daniel W's above too, are well thought out and honest perspectives that aid my own thoughts.

Steve R. - Great points. To be honest, I haven't read the paper yet, but you've started a great conversation and i want to keep it going because it is we are very likely in the discovery phase of this whole space, so nothing in so clear and black/white. My initial thoughts and then hopefully, if I have a chance to read it later this weekend, we can keep responding to each other. First, I think the legal and regulatory system needs to catch up to the entire digital space before any of this goes truly mainstream. Are digital contracts like NFTs truly enforceable? Are community tokens really just a new form of equity that needs to be overseen by the SEC? I am not sure of either. But in creating my framework, I am assuming that both of these will be properly regulated and end up being legal assets or contracts. Second, to your point rewards points are already a "thing", but I think the community tokens primarily accomplish 2 things. 1) It democratizes everyone's ability to generate rewards points or community tokens, which creates a VC environment. A VC environment that has open liquidity, where typical VC investments do not have an easy exit to the open market. From my perspective, who cares...I don't follow any YouTuber and most people I follow provide free content, so why would I pay. Sure...but that is very traditional view. My 12 yr old nephew has been raised in the digital age and adores the celebrities that play his games. If he could pay to have more personalized interactions, he would! So now imagine Ninja (no idea what game he plays or whatever), who made $7M playing games as a teenager. Currently his demand is meteoric...imagine if you were able to buy one of his community tokens back before he was making $7M for something like $5. Obviously, now his token would be worth much more. It is the NFT's of humanity...and hoping some of your humans/communities end up being worth more. 2) It decentralizes ALL community tokens. Once this becomes mainstream, no one will have centralized rewards/community tokens. This is huge...and the bigger concept, in my opinion. Currently, I have 100K of Delta SkyMiles because my company only uses Delta. At 100k I get some perks and 150k I get tons of perks...free flights, etc. But if my company stops using Delta, most of my ability to earn Delta SkyMiles goes away, thus removing much of the value of those SkyMiles because they are centralized - I can only interact with the corporate entity, who determines the value of those SkyMiles. But if it is decentralized, now the open market can determine the value of those SkyMiles and I can exchange them for other things. Imagine I have 100k of SkyMiles that are useless to me, but you need 100K SkyMiles to get to 1M, which gives you lifetime domestic flights or something. In order to earn 100K of SkyMiles, you may have to take 20 flights, which may cost $3K. But you may be able to pay me $2K (and save your time and expedite the achievement process) for my 100K. Now you have the elite 1M SkyMiles and I was able to extract value from my dormant SkyMiles. That is awesome! It almost is the complete digitization and democratization of barter. So the way to extract value is to be able to identify the trends early. I look forward to hear your thoughts. Cheers!

Hi Nymann I. Everyone talks about deriving more 'value' (whatever that actually is), from these communities and tokens. Unless that 'value' is only obtainable by owning a 'token', but isn't that just the same as paying a subscription or an entrance fee? I belong to numerous online communities, no tokens, no subscriptions, nothing required, just a group of people with a collective interest exchanging content. I get immense real value from these communities without any tokens etc. And that's probably because the model Raoul talks about is only applicable if you're trying to sell or monetize something. In which case you need paying consumers which brings me back to my point about its just a different form of marketing for the 'digital age'. Having looked through dozens of so-called 'creators' on rally.io I can't see why this will ever work long term. What I obviously fail to understand yet is how all this will add to MY bank account rather than just paying into someone else's. What is the 'thing' that's so powerful to draw me to it above all the alternatives of doing the same thing elsewhere? I just don't see it. Real examples anyone? Being beholden to a community is just as much a liability as an asset as many 'influencers' have discovered, some paid the ultimate price. All the use-cases so far just seem like ways to sell more product or to just pump up the price of something on the basis of some notion of increased 'perceived value'. Reminds me of 2000 all over again, but I'm genuinely interested to see how all this plays out as an observer.

Why not seeing it as an opportunity to be an active shareholder and derive more value, intellectually and mybe economically, than a traditional stock owner?

Uniswap

Thanks Everyone for responding

Hi Prathiba, I live in Oz too and bought it on Crypto.com. I use Coinspot for most of my other crypto trades. It's a pretty decent platform and easy to use with good support and features for easy tax complianece etc. Jules

Search for the coin on coinmarketcap.com and it will list all the exchanges that have the coin available

give coinex a try.

I bought RLY on the balancer exchange using my metamask wallet. I live in the US. Not sure if that makes a difference.

Very long term as community tokens will be the big thing for the next cycle like Defi and NFT's were for this cycle and hopefully there will be more protocols and platforms to invest in over time.

love this