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Two comments: * BAT is a non-financial utility token, not a currency. * The Brave Referral Program specifically prohibited participants from making statements
by tlholaday 7y ago
Two comments:
* BAT is a non-financial utility token, not a currency.
* The Brave Referral Program specifically prohibited participants from making statements that BAT is a currency, a store of value, or an investment.
Examples of real-world non-financial utility tokens are amusement-park ride tickets and beer-garden food-and-drink tickets.
- otterley 7y agoIf it's not a currency, what value does it have to the holder? It should also be noted that the law determines what qualifies as a currency, not the issuer. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck - you know the rest.
- solidsnack9000 7y agoUtility tokens are, like arcade game tokens or food and drink tickets at a fair, valuable for their use with a particular venue or service -- not for their exchange value. Generally, the law does not recognise these kinds of things as currency.
- otterley 7y agoI'm reminded of Itchy and Scratchy Money, themselves a parody of Disney Dollars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dErRj6V8_xQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dErRj6V8_xQ I'm not sure why Brave thinks the public will seriously value these.
- solidsnack9000 7y agoPurpose specific tokens make sense when the scope is "limited enough". The public does actually use laundromat tokens, food tickets at fairs, arcade tokens and similar things. They wouldn't take them seriously outside of the appropriate context but they definitely take them seriously within them.
- otterley 7y agoSure, but the world isn't a Chuck-E-Cheese's restaurant. The real world deals in cash, not tokens to be exchanged for trinkets. It stretches the imagination to believe that website purveyors are going to want to deal in Brave Bucks, or whatever they want to call them. And if they can be exchanged for arbitrary goods and services, as opposed to a tightly constrained set of options, it's going to be deemed a currency.
- solidsnack9000 7y agoWhat if the token were only redeemable on-network for advertisements and reading, and otherwise the only thing to do with it would be sell it on an exchange for currency?
- otterley 7y agoWe're going in circles here. Here's the thing: the law looks to intent. If the sole purpose of issuing these things is to evade regulations by coming up with something that's not designated a currency but otherwise operates like one, no amount of jumping up and down and screaming "it's not a currency! don't call it a currency!" isn't going to make it something other than a currency. Courts aren't dumb and they don't look kindly to parties who try to game the system. In your hypothetical, the existence of an option of selling this thing on an exchange for other currencies makes it very similar to any other kind of currency. I think you'd have to eliminate that option to avoid getting too close to the line. But if you don't have that option, I just don't see how it'll have any significant value to the recipient.
- solidsnack9000 7y agoMost non-currency things can be sold for currency. What makes BAT more similar to a currency than those things?
- otterley 7y ago
- smitop 7y agoAmusement ride tickets have inherient utility: you can redeem them for a ride. What utility can you get from BAT, other than selling it?