 | Many of us, more or less are familiar with Steem-engine.com and the concept of TRIBES. That being said, today I would like to ask one hell of an important question related to those topics. |
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INTRODUCTION
.... So, this publication is directed to those of you, dear readers, who have some decent knowledge or have your own opinion/idea of launching your own token on SE.
Lately, we’ve all witnessed a new and interesting trend of so many new tokens being launched left and right on Steem-engine.com and currently there is no way to recognize even half of them. Last time I’ve checked I counted over 400. Most of them completely meaningless, without any sensible business model and sustainable economy that could create and support demand.
IMPORTANT QUESTION
I can hardly imagine that we would stop at this current stage, so there is surely more to come. And part of me believes that launching your own token may be more risky than most of us want to admit. It is really important to ask the question which seem to bother me a lot lately:
 | HOW SAFE IS IT TO LAUNCH YOUR OWN TOKEN ON STEEM-ENGINE? From the legal point of view of course. Why would I be having my doubts? I’m simply not sure if we can and should consider all those tokens to be utility or security offerings. |
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Up until a week day ago I didn’t even think about it and I’ve been excited to join PALnet and SteemLEO tribes, investing some of my resources (time and steem) into those two tribes. However, last week a good friend of mine (with years of experience as an investment banker) mentioned that some of the current Steem-engine tokens are nothing but security and the best way for founders to avoid trouble is to stay low under “the radar” and avoid raising to much funds (that could bring unwanted attention).
He also mentioned that the founders/team members who initially would be rewarded with part of a newly launched token would have to pay taxes for receiving them. Which kind of make sense. However, should we pay any taxes if we wouldn’t cash out all those tokens to FIAT currency? I’m not really sure.
SECURITY OR UTILITY TOKEN?
As far as I know, by launching an ICO and having one purpose – to raise money in order to set up a business – we would have to consider it being a security offering. Adding some utility (as most ICOs tried to do) may help and keep us safe, but I wouldn’t rely on it.
Now how would it look like if one of us would come up with some business idea, would create and launch his own token on Steem-engine and managed to attract solid investors. Some decent amount of STEEM would be raised (let’s say 100k) and it would be used to start up this business.
Should we consider this token to be security at this stage? Or should we not, since we would be receiving STEEM token, which is not a currency in the name of the law. STEEM is a utility token, so in theory receiving this kind of support shouldn’t be a problem. After all we wouldn’t receive any FIAT currency from our investors.
Also should founders be taxed if they initially received large amount of PAL/LEO? I can imagine that if they cashed it out and exchanged to FIAT, then taxes surely would have to be paid. But if they keep those tokens (or exchange to STEEM) and use them within STEEM blockchain (powering up or promoting posts, steem-bounties etc) then should we feel safe?
Source: https://www.coinreview.com/security-vs-utility-tokens/
SHARE YOUR OPINION
So far, those are some of the opinions and very important questions I have. I hope some of you are able to share your views and opinions with me. I fully understand that this industry is not fully regulated and the approach to currently discussed topics can differ depending on which country we’re living in. However, I would still love to hear what you all have to say, and hopefully other readers will benefit from this topic as well.
Note: I read/reply to all valuable comments. Thank you.
Yours,
Piotr
cc: @aggroed, @steemleo, @khaleelkazi, @organduo, @isaria, @neoxian, @bitcoinflood, @asgarth, @chesatochi, @ edicted, @neal.leo, @ cryptopassion