“The MemoryCoin BlockChain is Hiring” That’s right, this is a decentralized, peer-to-peer crypto-currency just like Bitcoin (although it uses a different, memory intensive Proof-of-Work to keep the ASICs at bay but inviting all the botnet owners in the world to profit) and the blockchain is hiring. Wait, what?

I think MemoryCoin is trying something brilliant here. In the crypto-currency space, people generally tend to agree that the long-term success of an altcoin depends on certain things being in place (this doesn’t apply to overnight pump-and-dumps. I am looking at you, Earthcoin), from binaries/source-code and pools to marketing, website, faucets, bounties, etc. Usually, the people who own the most have the most to gain from these secondary ecosystems around the coin, and therefore sponsor projects themselves.

However, MemoryCoin has done something very interesting – it has created 5 different positions built into the protocol that help with this process. This is a clear indication to the people involved (or not) that they are serious about this effort and hopefully the people ‘hired’ will bring something to the table.

The Jobs

So how does this work? MemoryCoin has created 5 paid positions – Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Network Officer (CNO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Support Officer (CSO) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Anyone can apply for these positions, and the person who gets the most votes is chosen for the job. The voting is done by the owners of the coin, and is weighted by the number of coins you own. The payout is given as a fraction of the mining rewards.

This is very clever because the incentives are clearly aligned –

The owners, who are like stockholders, want the value of their coins (stocks) to increase. They do this by diluting their shares, and hiring some people to create an ecosystem around the coin. Since the votes can be changed very frequently, they can afford to go wrong once with someone and take their chances.

For the people applying for these positions, they have a clear incentive to provide value to the owners as they get paid for it. They also have an incentive to continue creating value, because they know this isn’t like a ‘permanent job’ and they can be replaced by the owners at a very short notice.

I don’t think this has ever been tried before, but this is a very good idea. It is very hard to predict how it will pan out, but is a very interesting experiment nonetheless that I am curious to see unfold. Perhaps other coin creators in the future can learn from this experiment and even improve upon it (it’s too early to draw real lessons at this stage, I think).

Salaries MemoryCoin Pays

‘Salaries’ are given out once every 20 blocks. Each position gets 1% of the mining rewards, so the total expenditure is 5% of the mining rewards.

Block target: 6 minutes, so 24*60/6 = 240 blocks mined per day.

Block reward: 280 MMC.

Total block reward generated per day: 280*240 = 67200 MMC

Total paid per position: 1% of 67200 = 672 MMC

The ‘salary’ associated with each position is therefore 672 MMC.

Based on the current exchange rate of $0.54 per 1 MMC, we get a total salary of $362.88/day per position

That’s a very good salary!

Of course, the value of this salary is probably only going to go up as the value of MemoryCoin increases (assuming it does, of course). This should invite a lot more talented people to apply for these jobs and build something good.

In Conclusion

I think this is a very worthwhile experiment by MemoryCoin and it is really good to see altcoins taking the initiative to try something new and different. This should only be the first step in creating coins that ‘hire’ people. I’ll write more about this in the future, but this seems like a next step in the Dawn of Autonomous Corporations, Bitcoin being the first one.

If you want to look at this, think of it as a way for the blockchain to hire people. Bitcoin showed that ‘hiring miners’ was needed to secure the network. Now, the next level is to hire miners and then hire some other talent that complements and grows the coin. I see no reason for this to stop here.

What are your thoughts?

Photo Credit: Iris Laguna

p.s. MemoryCoin is currently available to buy on Bter. The exchanges should be on-board in a few days/weeks too.