[jillesvangurp]

Neither equity nor tokens have much long term value if the company fails; or simply fails to be a unicorn. It's a nice little extra in case things work out against all odds though. If you are founder, you may get a little out of an acquihire, IPO, or other exit but for employees the benefits are usually more modest (if any).

The big question is if they are offering equity to others. Because if they do, you can be sure that that is the asset to own when things go well.

This is actually a problem with equity based blockchain token investments. The premise of a proper token structure is to create some kind of long term value that is tied to the economic success of the company. If you have both tokens and equity, the shareholders will try to maximize their return on investment, typically at the cost of the token value and the ecosystem it is supposed to benefit. There's a conflict of interest there that dooms many tokens before they get off the ground because ultimately their long term value is redirected to the share holders instead of the token holders.

On the other hand, if blockchains are going to eventually produce some unicorns, now would be the time to get involved. IMHO, we need to move beyond the current rather underwhelming state of the art that resembles the early dot com days in many ways. But then, the dot com bubble did produce plenty of successful startups in the end. IMHO it will take probably a decade or so before we'll know for sure whether there are business cases for some form of blockchain company to succeed.

Either way, insist on cash payments combined with something that may or may not be worth the gamble. That way you have something tangible.