they will release their own governance token through an airdrop. It's the new way to fund decentralised startups - no need for VC. Essentially it's the equivalent of an IPO on day 1.
I understand. Governance tokens are equity (usually with voting rights), and are used to generate a capital base for a decentralised product (think: crowdfunding). Not all governance tokens are airdropped and the secondary market for said tokens often results in them appreciating over time. I would suspect shapeshift to fund itself and generate wealth for the founders through doing this both at the point of issuance and over time.
With no incoming revenue, it seems like you've just described a pyramid scheme, albeit with extra technical steps. Can you help me understand the difference?
The various companies use such coins as a way to do the same thing as shares in a company. In fact, shares are just a pyramid scheme too, if you assume there is no obligation from the company to pay dividends or such.
The difference between coins and shares is such that shares can only legally be owned by a very very small number of people that are licensed to. You can ask them to buy and give you a certificate, but you yourself probably are not one of the few that can own stock. (series 7 in https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financialcareers/07/se...)
On the contrary, coins like these can be bought and sold by anyone. And this makes the balance very different. Should you see the company do stupid things, you can sell your coins in a very short time for nearly no cost and without asking for permission or waiting for banking-hours. Noteworthy is that you can sell them to anyone on the Internet.
Naturally, such companies (and there are quite a lot doing this today) pay out dividends as well. Typically to coin-holders addresses they arrange an air-drop. So simply you own 1000 and they pay 10 extra to that address.
Other strategies are buy-backs when the company is profitable which are meant to make the price go up because there is more demand than supply.
As you can see, there are quite a lot of similarities to stocks, and certainly also differences.
> In fact, shares are just a pyramid scheme too, if you assume there is no obligation from the company to pay dividends or such.
Yes, a company that promises to never make a profit, pay out any dividends to its shareholders, or buyback stocks is a pyramid scheme. Your statement here is a bit like saying a credit card is just like bank robbery, if there's no obligation to pay off the balance.