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As far as, would these corporate coins add some value or be good for Bitcoin, this analogy might be flawed, but IMO, corporate coins would just be an extension of their corporate shares. Yeah definitely, shares to a cryptocurrency, the whole use case changes and importantly accessibility. It has been reported that Facebook is planning to launch their cryptocurrency.
I have no idea how the structure of corporate coins would be, too centralized or borderline decentralized, but IMO even with all the data/privacy/censorship issues, a Facebook cryptocurrency will get adopted,
I do not agree with you that Crypto currencies would be perceived as a share by the customers. I would rather
compare the Crypto currency to some discount voucher or loyalty program points, than to shares. The customers will trade the tokens, but they will not own a share in the company.
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Alright. Lets consider them for a moment. I can't see them as being shares or as loyalty points either. The use case will be different for different companies using such private blockchains. In case of facebook what could they possibly do?
People generate content on Facebook. A lot of it. Facebook has recently received a lot of flak for letting user data be used for commercial purposes without user consent. If Facebook launches a blockchain based token, it may be a method for them to incentivize users for allowing their data to be shared. Say you have a few privacy settings and you get points every week on your facebook activity. The more private you make your account, your stakes get lowered and vice versa. This'll give them a good excuse to keep using the data while the people get something out of it.
I don't think it'll be that great for bitcoin. You cannot expect a corporate like Facebook to care about decentralization or the economic paradigm shifting properties of Bitcoin. Mark Zuckerberg is a technologist himself but I guess, being a billionaire presiding over an empire does changes things. Those ideals get sidelined when you have are so well integrated with the system. Blockchain based products from such established corporations like Facebook or McDonald's may be a body blow to bitcoin. It is clear that the majority of users don't give a rat's ass about decentralization or any long term goals. All they care about is getting some dough.
You can expect the apathy to multiply manifold once such blockchains running on private servers gain acceptance.
Most people will simply use them rather than try to explore the privacy and freedom related aspect of a truly trustless currency like bitcoin.Last year, in Novemeber an article was published on Hackernoon titled, The Facebook Cryptocurrency that Mark Zuckerberg Should Launch. It was before Zuckerberg said that he was looking into Blockchain technology. One of the suggestions made by the author,
At some point, Facebook could link that supply of digital currency to the stockholders, so that the stockholders have stock as well as the currency, or Facebook could pay out the currency as a dividend. Even more extreme would be if Facebook gave the coin in proportional share to the stockholders and forgot about their stock altogether. Then, hypothetically, all users and shareholders would be joined together as the owners of Facebook, and any transaction economy that it creates.
Yeah, a bit absurd and considering the very centralized business model of corporations, definitely too far-fetched.
Apart from pre-mined, the article also mentions airdrops, Facebook launching their own exchange, buybacks, and a few hypothetical possibilities on how a big corporation like Facebook with more than 2 billion users could build their token economy and monetize it.
A couple of years ago, there were no decentralized alternatives to Facebook/Twitter, but we do have them now, although the userbase is too small. Decentralization is a paradigm shift, but the approach taken by most of the decentralized Blockchain projects to decentralize everything isn't going to show any immediate results, it's a slow process. Yeah, people who don't care about their data privacy, security would use centralized cryptocurrencies backed by the so called corporations, but those who care, now have the choice to use decentralized versions with absolute privacy and security, wouldn't they use it? And as more decentralized platforms targeting different sectors are built, more decentralized choices people are going to have, adoption will be slow, but ultimately there would be a parallel decentralized economy.
https://hackernoon.com/facebook-could-launch-the-ultimate-cryptocurrency-2e6a5b65665bPS: Not vouching for any centralized shitcoin.