Everybody experienced the fallback of cryptocurrency prices during the last months. According to analysts, two major factors play important role in the decline.

Regulatory uncertainty

Lack of real world usage

Regulatory uncertainty

The growing popularity and novelty of cryptocurrencies surprised authorities all around the world, and traditionally they respond slowly to such revolutionary innovations. During the months, the — mostly hostile — first reactions seem to turn to neutrality, but the real question (In what way could be the use of cryptocurrencies be regulatory compliant?) stays unanswered.

We don’t see exact guideance, mostly just reactions (e.g. SEC vs. Munchee case), from which the blockchain companies try to derive potential regulations. The Munchee case also shows that even if an ICO project states its token is a utility one, the regulators can think it is security.

As long as the securities exchanges don’t give answers and guideance on which forms of crypto coin/token usage is accepted, this uncertainty remains.

Lack of real world usage

Most crypto companies don’t even count as startups in the Venture Capitalist sense, as they are not more than technology concepts. No one knows if the products and business models, which will emerge from these developments will have a profitable market fit or not. The pressure from token sale contributors forces companies to work out schemes that favor the contributors, but if they are acceptable by paying customers is yet to be seen.

Even those projects which are already in use, like Ripple, could not find a way to make token usage compelling for customers. This shows how difficult it is to introduce completely new business models to existing markets.

Next step

These set a clear roadmap for token based blockchain projects:

Without regulatory compliance and acceptance by real customers, crypto companies have no future.

It won’t matter how advanced their technology is, if they can not address these two points, they will fail.

Of course, ICO projects which are registered on Cayman Islands, or those which will be developing their product for 1–2–3 more years are not concerned with these problems. With a ready product with 6000+ business customers, we don’t have this luxury.

We spent months trying to find the best token economy structure, which can be embedded into the requirements of regulators. As the regulators’ opinion crystallized, we had to evolve with it.

Overview

TE-FOOD will have a two-token economy:

TFD: Tokenised software licence

TFS (working title): Transaction token (in concept phase)

TFD: Tokenized software licence

TE-FOOD ecosystem can be used with a valid licence, represented by TFD (ERC20 token).

Each TE-FOOD licence can be subdivided into sub-licences, or utilization units. The number of utilization units in 1 licence may be different in by the country of implementation.

Each user (B2B and consumer)must have at least one TE-FOOD sub-licence to use the system and trigger tracking transactions. A tracking transaction involves the storage of data on blockchain, allowing for tracking or further processing.

Each sub-licence entitles the holder to trigger a certain number of transactions each day. This number is called transaction potential, which the sub-licence contains. Besides the licese fee, generating transactions might have additional (per transaction) cost within the system.

Companies need to have the sufficient number (according to the number of their users and daily transactions) of tokens in their possession as long as they are users of the ecosystem.

Crypto tokens for protocols will become as ubiquitous as software licenses and terms-of-service agreements for cloud services: to use the software in decentralized computing you’ll need the respective token.

(The next wave of computing)

Implementation partners

TE-FOOD International settles licensing directly with the supply chain participants or indirectly, with the local implemantation partner. This means the implementation partner can cover the licence needs for the users of an implementation, then arrange settlements with customers on a custom basis.

Opposed to traditional licensing, token based licensing gives you the ability to “reuse” the same licenses for different products and when the need arises. As tokens are sold or purchased on exchanges, the license can easily change hands, so more users can use the software for a limited time.

(Blockchain: Token as a License (TaaL))

We believe that on a global scale, it will be easier to handle multiple types of licences within the ecosystem in a unified way.

TFS (concept title): Transaction token

TFS will be a token to hold and transfer value within the TE-FOOD ecosystem. Technically, it will be a stable coin, pegged to USD. TFS will be only used within our own blockchain, once it’s ready and functional.

Initially, TFS will be used to represent the transactions made by the users of the ecosystem. in practice, the transaction potential of TFD sub-licences refer to the number of TFS tokens. Once a transaction is made, the TFS equivalent transferred out from the holder’s wallet. The TFS goes to the providers enabling the service and the network infrastructure.

Later, as the ecosystem grows, TFS is planned to be used to hold and transfer any other value amongst the participants of the ecosystem. There are several potential use cases for such value transfer, which can be applied later to make the system a living and automated ecosystem.