THIS
IMO, we don’t want people drawn to the DAO because they like the BANK token. We want people committed to the mission of transitioning the world to using sound, digital currencies and decentralized money protocols instead of holding their wealth in sovereign currencies which can be debased and centralized banking institutions that can censor transactions.
I think a second bias we may have despite the fact that a BANK with financial value increases our wealth is that the BANK we all received was unexpected and could feel underserved if it’s worth something. I mean we already had a lot of value just being premium subscribers to the best podcast out there, discovering and having fun with the POAPs… So getting BANK makes us want to give back, invest time or even money for the DAO, and that is a real bias.
An interesting perspective here would be from the people who joined the DAO by buying their first 35K BANK.
I’ll chime in here as someone who purchased their 35k $BANK. I was planning on joining on substack and simply forgot to do so in time. Once I saw the creation of the DAO and what they had going on, I recognized that this was the community that I was looking for in the crypto world. The pull was strong, just as it was when I stumbled into the Burning Man community IRL 8 years ago. The openness, the willingness to share talents, the supporting of each other in our own and joint efforts reminds me so much of the Burners that I knew I’d found the right place. That is what convinced me that it was worth selling off some ETH. I do believe that people value what they pay for. They need skin in the game, and I put mine in because I saw the value.
All that to simply say, I didn’t buy $BANK as a store of money, nor to pad my portfolio. Have their been times when I thought it would be nice if $BANK went to the moon? Sure. If it every hit $100 I’d be super happy and probably buy the most expensive bottle of bourbon I could find to celebrate.
BUT, (there is always a but)
I realized early on that if $BANK goes up too much, it becomes that much harder for those that may not be as fortunate as I to be able to join us in trying to change the world, and we need as much help as we can get. To sound overly dramatic (because I am sometimes), we have an opportunity here to upend one of the longest standing, entrenched, and corrupt systems in the world - the financial system. It is rigged in favor those who already have more than they could ever need, at the expense of those that just want to have a place to live, be able to pay their bills, and not have empty their savings if their kid ends up in the hospital. To put it nicely, WE ARE AT WAR, and our foe holds vast resources. We need all the fucking help we can get.
So what is my point?
How do we create something of value, that people can invest in knowing that it will appreciate over time? I mean, that’s what builds wealth right?
That kind of leaves us with only two paths. $BANK goes up, some of us are happy, and we become more exclusive. $BANK goes down, we have wider doors, but less incentive to invest.
Can’t we find a 3rd, 4th, or nth path?
What can we create that helps us bring people into the community, and not price them out? Maybe create another token that could be used for farming or investing in defi, or creating our own ECF (Electronic Crypto Fund), or something entirely unthought of… We have so much brain power in the DAO that we can figure this out! Defi is creating all kinds of ways to experiment with money that could never be done before. Let’s do more of that, and find ways to share that wealth. WE CAN BE THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.
Sigh. I feel like I left more things unanswered than answered.
I’ll now step off my soapbox.
In general the DAO would benefit from increased value of BANK, our budget is in BANK (generally) so we could lower compensation (in BANK) and do more thing with the same amount. Then I think the question is, do we need to dedicate time to this specific question on increasing BANK value? (One could argue it would appriciate if we create value)
There is also no magic 35kBANK limit that can’t be moved, if BANK appriciated to say 1USD we could either set the amount based on a USD amount or just lower BANK amount to appropriate level the next Season.
I think this is the way that we do it. 35k Bank makes sense right now. It will make zero sense at 1Bank = 1.00 usd. We should set up a schedule from 0-100 usd per $Bank so that those of us in the genesis group benefit from our first in position but we can also get new insights and talents along the way. I do not think it needs to be a linear progression based on a fiat dollar amount the tokens are worth but more of a curve or step function where as the price per $Bank moves up the higher the total fiat to join. Currently $Bank =$0.02 that is $700 to join. At inception Bank was 0.09 and there was a massive sell off over the first 4 weeks to get us down to 0.028. Currently for the amount of work the DAO is doing the value of $Bank is extremely underpriced in my opinion.
(Warning: Unpopular opinion) I am revisiting this topic after a few months and EIP-1559. I never understood how ETH could be used as a utility token while simultaneously having a high price. The higher the price of ETH, the higher the transaction costs and the more people are priced out of participating in the Ethererum ecosystem. This is an argument for sidechains and layer 2 - reduction of transaction costs.
I feel that this is the same logic being applied to BANK. Bankless DAO is theoretically for everyone and wants to “bank the unbanked” but at the same time, Bankless members want the token value of BANK to increase. Achieving both seems unlikely without a ceiling in the BANK price. The higher the price of BANK, the harder it is to achieve member status in Bankless DAO. With a limited supply of tokens, growing demand, and potential revenue streams, it’s hard to imagine the value of BANK staying at a low level. A possible solution may be to create 2 tokens that accomplish each goal separately - a value accretion token, vBANK, and a governance token, BANK.
It doesn’t matter if it’s considered money or not. For all US residents, if you receive anything of value in exchange for a service, it’s considered income and you have to pay income tax on the Fair Market Value of that item.
On the business side, (at least in US law), any exchange of money or something of value exceeding $600 in fair market value has to be 1099’d, unless it’s to a corporation. That’s the only way to legally expense it.
So what we call it doesn’t really matter with how we are using it.
I also think if we find ways to incentivize $Bank holders to spend their tokens within the DAO, it would stabilize. If everyone just acquires and holds it, it will become rarer and therefore price go up. As mentioned in the discord, the idea of spending $Bank for an annual membership fee, that circulates the $Bank back into the system. Selling NFT’s in $Bank. Maybe provide consulting or services internally to members in exchange for $Bank. Let’s create a full economy with the token.
I think BANK will become money over time as the DAO continues to produce more value. We are responsible for convincing people why BANK is valuable and I think we are well on our way to doing that. As long as we keep spinning out amazing projects and providing members with awesome benefits, BANK will be money.
The concept of money and how people agree to what is/ and what is not money is rapidly changing. As we progress further down the line, cyber communities will play a major role in deciding what is money for them as a community. I also see several tokens being used to serve the function of money at different levels and within different communities and projects/blockchains. some “monies” will exist entirely in cyberspace communities/metaverse while others will trascend both cyberspace and the offchain world. I agree, $Bank will be whatever we want it to be. afterall $BANK is the people.
I kinda hate the term, but BANK is 100% dogfooding. As the concept of “money” evolves, I hope this community will have painted a picture of how/why the term is subjective and fluid.
Be the BANK you want to see in the world!
Nicely detailed post. For me, however, the essence can be distilled to this -
Exactly. What makes people want to hold any other tokens that are currently relatively good at storing value? It’s either -
A) they entitle you to capture of the DAO’s revenues - dividends, etc. This is why people buy stocks. All DeFi tokens are a good example.
B) membership perks - in this model holding BANK is like holding a membership pass to an exclusive clubs that provides value. This has to be real value that you are willing to pay for - not just getting discounts for stuff you don’t want, etc.
I think we need to focus on both - how do we generate revenues for the DAO and what do people get out of being Bankless members (other than learning about how DAOs work or getting paid for their contributions). Both are good discussions to be had.
Everything else is just schemes adding sugar on top in the best case and ponzinomics in the worst case. Staking or yields cannot be the foundation of why any token holds value. You can not justify value by getting % yield on something whose value converges towards 0. Protocols that make this the cornerstone of their existence usually go viral for a short period of time, until they crashland to essentially nothing.
I sell bank, I buy it, I stack it, trade my labuor for it, I build liquidity, pay commissions, pay bounties, vote with it, and give an get tips in bank. one of the most useful tokens I have. i plan my future around it.