Are you planning to launch an ICO post the 2017 ICO boom? Times have changed. You won’t get away with vague concepts. Instead, like any other startup you need to focus on user value, and design a token economy around that user value.

First of all, consider if you really want to launch an utility token. If the utility of your token doesn’t go beyond ‘voting’ on something, then I highly doubt it will be a successful utility token. Don’t be lazy and consider doing the paperwork and actually launching a security token, which is more similar to a traditional stock in your company. Where investors could benefit if your company increases in value. While it might seem attractive to just launch a quick utility token, you will have very upset investors in your community channels if they don’t see the token going anywhere.

Ok, so if you really believe an utility token is the best way to fund your company, then it’s time to design a proper utility token. Let’s have a look at some examples and what we can learn from them.

Low utility tokens & decreasing trading volumes

Many of the tokens out there spiked in value during December 2017 and January 2018 (related to the bitcoin and ICO hype back then), but since then most have basically flatlined. Most worrying to me is the total decrease in trading volume of these tokens. For an utility token that is meant to be used in your ecosystem, that doesn’t seem like an healthy token economy. There can be many reasons for this decrease in trading volume, but generally speaking I think it’s due to lack of a good token economy design. Let’s have a look at some examples.