A Hypothesis for the Future of Cryptocurrency

by slimjimeatingoranges

Let me preface this by saying I’m not a cryptocurrency fan. I think the whole thing is stupid and a Ponzi scheme and propped up by Tether, etc. But I was having a thought the other day and wanted some input from the community here.

What if what this whole house of cards is moving towards is it becoming ubiquitous for businesses to all have their own token. Like Chuck E. Cheese tokens or Kohl’s cash. What’s the point of that you ask? Well it’s like buying store credit. You spend money to buy Chuck E Cheese tokens which then can only be spent at Chuck E Cheese.

So once you get everything that you want, you probably overspent by some margin and have leftover tokens. This both means that you spent more money than you needed to AND you have incentive to return again. In an increasingly online world where purchases are made online, crypto is an obvious replacement to physical tokens.

Where does BTC come into this? Well maybe it doesn’t, but perhaps the only way to purchase these tokens is via BTC or probably Ethereum 2.0 since it’s supposed to be faster with less fees. If it were Ethereum, then maybe BTC would be some kind of reserve currency for the whole system. So Ethereum would be like an intermediary between all these businesses tokens.

So why would a consumer want this world? Well we wouldn’t. But most of us don’t want subscription based product models but the industry is shoving it down our throats nonetheless because it’s much more profitable for them.

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Can’t you see it now? A world where Amazon gives all of its prime members 20 free Amazon tokens per month with special deals and promotions to incentivize consumers to use their system. This could even be a way they cut out credit cards to avoid the 2-3% fees they pay.

Would everyone use it? Of course not, and it would likely be a long transition period. But some people would definitely use it.

The other question to ask here is why would it all need to be decentralized crypto? Well it wouldn’t necessarily, companies could keep token totals on their own private servers. It could however be a transparency or security selling point to consumers. There would probably be companies that did both options. If Ethereum were an intermediary though, it would probably make sense to have that decentralized. Same with BTC if it’s a weird reserve currency.

Lastly, the final question would be, would the governments of the world allow this? No clue. Probably not. But crypto has lasted a hell of a lot longer than I ever thought it would without being regulated so who knows?

I’ll conclude by saying that I hope to god I don’t have to live in a world like this. Paid in USD, forced to buy ETH, and then forced to buy Amazon tokens when the old system involved 3 fewer steps. But I’d be curious to see your thoughts on this. Please prove my hypothesis wrong.

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