I think this project is a great idea (rewarding investors for investing in patent research with a share of the patent dividends).
But I'm wondering why the LabCoin token is being created, when it's only used for investing in projects and paying to project creators. ETH can do that just as easily.
The whitepaper mentions a 2% fee on LabCoin transactions made on the platform. Seems like that could be done with ETH as well.
Investors are paid in ETH, according to the whitepaper. But that is actually a hindrance - they then have to convert that ETH back into LabCoin for investing into new projects? That means transfer fees, exchange fees, exchange withdrawal fees, etc.
Why not just use ETH for everything? Making a new ERC-20 token doesn't really insulate you against big fluctuations in the crypto market.
I'm not anti-ERC-20. But when the ERC-20 doesn't seem to really do anything more than ETH can do - why make a new token?
Edit: By the way, the telegram channel isn't letting me post anything, or I'd have asked there first. Is it an announcements only channel?
Hello androda and thanks for your enthusiasm. Also, thank you for your relevant questions.
LabCoins (LAB) is a utility token that gives us flexibility and control over the evolution of the project, as well as the "currency" used to invest the project presented on the platform.
I agree with you that for every ICO project, tokens could at the end of the day be replaced by ETH. Some other ICOs (like ours) issue tokens because it allows them to uncorrelate the price of the token from the ETH market. If in practice we are still in a speculation market which makes the price of tokens still linked to the ETH market, on the long term, the prices should be uncorrelated.
Even if correlated to the cryptocurrency market price firstly, in a second time and on longer-term, the LabCoin (LAB) price will mainly be correlated to the value of the innovation projects on the platform and will gradually uncorellate itself from the price of other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum.
Moreover, from a technical point of view, issuing our own ERC20 token allow us to develop services and interfaces around it, and to make the interaction between our platform and other Ethereum blockchain based services more clear and convenient.
The transaction fee on the platform might change in the future. Its basically a maintenance fee that will allow our team to maintain the platform and to upgrade it.
As for the payement, our goal is that the investors could choose in which currency they would like to be paid. For now we only support ETH and LAB payement but we will add more currencies in the near future.
Regards