20 sats \ 6 replies \ @TheBTCManual 4 Jun 2022 \ on: Central African Republic to tokenize the nation’s natural resources bitcoin
Sounds like this is the start of them actually starting to shitcoin
Well, the devil is in the details.
Venezuela tried to make their "petro" (PTR) token become a currency. It failed. I didn't follow it closely so don't know the particular reason(s), but that outcome was not a surprise.
But let's say the Central African Republic implements a 'production sharing" / royalty scheme where 10% of the production (i.e., the value of the commodity at the time it is produced) goes to the state. So the state has future revenue stream that they would like to spend today. To do so using traditional methods, they would likely have to take a huge discount -- due to all kinds of risks.
So if they expect $10M of revenue from this type of mining in 2023, for example, they could sell 1 million of the tokens and maybe see buyers willing to pay $7 each (i.e., raising $7M today). If that revenue comes in at $10M, the tokenholders see a 42% ROI for holding the token. If that revenue comes in at $5M (e.g., energy crisis causes the mining company to go bankrupt mid-year, or whatever), then the token holder sees a ~30% loss on investment.
The difference is that with a token, the country gets nearly all of the revenue (the $7M) up front and without the middleman, and open to a wider field of investors. If forced to make a sale the traditional methods, maybe they get only $4M (of the $10M expected revenue), and the investors put in $5M, yielding $1M for the middleman who secured the funding.
So it's not really a shitcoin, it's simply pre-selling of an expected future revenue stream -- something nearly every large organization does today. Just that it is being done with a token (with a higher number of speculator investors), versus a contract with a tiny handful of speculator investors.
reply
Every country has their own way of licensing (and earning from) mining, of course, I didn't even see Central African Republic in this (high level) overview:
GUIDE TO MINING REGIMES IN AFRICA
https://www.lexafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/LEX-Africa-MINING-GUIDE-DIGITAL.pdf
reply
I thought the same thing. Then I thought I'm letting my bitcoin maxi bias color my impression of what has to be a good thing- rejecting the CFA franc for bitcoin and taking back control of their natural resources.
reply
Remains to be seen if it does roll out though, that Bill was more crypto than bitcoin and to be honest, what's the point of leaving the CFA franc if you're going to shitcoin? So you stop paying France and instead pay technocrats?
I don't want to make assumptions so I will wait till we see what rolls out, I just know the temptation of short term fiat incentives is hard to kick for most
reply
At first glance I thought the same but if you think a little more it’s no different, perhaps an upgrade, on the current commodity markets.
reply
I think it depends on how it's done, is it a liquid network like the BMN or the volcano bond, and runs on bitcoin rails? Is it on a shitcoin chain? or is it just a private blockchain run by some company wanting to get in on state funds? I don't see why thats needed and why it's an upgrade
reply