Bitcoin Forum

I read a recent article about something innovative that UCash has been implementing: IBO instead of ICO. You will ask, what is an IBO? Basically, IBO participants “invest their skills and time to earn rewards in the new cryptocurrency”. Contributors to the IBO are given specific tasks that are associated with corresponding amounts of crypto tokens as rewards.

Here is the link to the article that explains it more into details:
https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/innovation/forget-icos-initial-bounty-offerings-exchange-skills-crypto-tokens/
https://cointelegraph.com/explained/how-initial-bounty-offering-can-help-the-unbanked-explained

The concept itself is quite original and innovative, or is it a way to escape from regulations?

I didnt realise the concept had a name (IBO) but bounties have been operating as a very useful tool for some considerable time in crypto. Look at the ANN pages here on BCT for ALT currencies. The first questions often discussed are bounties. People are prepared to do tasks and bet on the currency of the coin being offered.

From what I read, there is no much difference of what is currently available that we have here. In the case of IBO, what it simply means is that instead of hiring a developer to be paid with either fiat or btc, you pay with that coins you are promoting so what you get is human services. But its no different because now, quite a number of ICOs will offer their coins in payment of services received. The campaign managers, the signature advertisers, Facebook and Twitter campaigns, language translators etc. they all get paid using the currency.

What I see here is just an avenue currently developed to make it seems new, but I don't see more developers using that option because

1. A lot of developers wants what they can quickly convert to fiat or btc and pay people as the need arises and

2. A lot of bounty hunters are not even interested in the project rather what they can convert immediately and if a developer is insisting on his own coins, he might not get the required audience.

3. A lot of investors have no specific skills to offer the project just their funds and for them to get returns on investment.

So IBO is just like bounties? Makes sense, since it is a short form of 'initial bounty offering'. Yet I am not sure whether bounties are always about skills. I have seen bounty threads asking one to join one's computer to mining pools.  At the same time, ICOs may ask you to do something instead of paying money to get their coins as a reward. A rather common situation is when ICO campaign asks you to translate their official info into your native language and they pay you in their coins when they are released. That's why I guess this ibo and ico things don't differ that much and there isn't much sense in distinguishing them.

Hi,

Indeed, I like this idea. In fact, just like a business angel, you will completely get involved in the project on which you bet.
That can be great. At least I like this concept.

The point is that, just like many ICOs, I guess that most IBOs are just worthless after a while...

It is quite actually hard to determine which projects are gonna succeed and wth this concept, you may lose time as well as money...

it's true, it seems that ibo is a good work , all the business and work activities have a negative value and possible loss? , all business activities are always possible failed.

It's certainly very similar to A signature campaign were we are being paid to do something and its just another way of putting a more established form of Signature campaigns is what I feel.

I think of what you mean by IBO is the bounty. When my guess is right then it is already on the thought of ICO, basicaly ICO has bounty rewards for those who want to earn al fraction of their tokens without investing to their project. I think every ico has bounties and i believe that ICO and IBO by your defination is just the same.

ICOs already have IBOs very often to promote themselves. It's happening right here on Bitcointalk too, having ICOs throw around with millions of dollars for their IBOs. These IBOs often includes Signature campaigns, article writing, translations, social media promotions, etc!

However, an initial bounty offering using purely bounties and no sale is interesting, though I'm kinda sceptical about how they'd make their money... Projects still need money, even when a lot of human work is provided to them...

These articles lack readily available information about that.

When you can essentially crowd source time, what do you need money for? I don't think this would be in lieu of other fundraising methods. If you have a supplier who will only accept cash, someone could provide cash for "equity". No?

I saw that article the other day and thought wait we are already doing IBOs but they are prior to the ICOs why isn't this already a thing? Well perhaps apparently we should make it a thing because ICOs have gotten a nasty image in the media now I think and IBOs may help set the record straight. There have been a lot of other names used recently it is a matter of which one will catch the industry next. Will it be TGE (token generation event), or the ITO (intial token offering) or the CGE (coin generation event) who knows but we gotta get a rebrand soon.

For an ICO project to succeed and call in millions of dollars, paying for PR campaigns is a great thing for the project to reach more investors. Most successful ICO projects that I know have a very aggressive campaign to attract potential investors to know and invest in the project. It is absolutely necessary to spend a small amount of money to get the results you expect.

Why they need to change the name? ICO is more popular now than IBO. I think it is not good for the company to apply it since I think they are not both different in terms of  ICO. Aside from using of skills and money to participate in IBO, what other factors that it will change?

Both concepts are not the same. While ICO stands to push a project to the market as a way of offering the project business to the public and investors alike, the IBO is the reward given out to participants or posters as bounties. SMH...Both are not the same, simple.

If you take work in compensation for valuable tokens then you are still under the regulations. You even have to fulfill employer and employee laws. If they pay valuable tokens for work delivered, then someone need to contribute value to make the tokens valuable. Finally this is close to an ICO where valuable money or coins is invested into another and new coin. Without investments there will be no new valuable tokens.

Really interesting artictle about those IBO's. To distrubute a coin for the commitment someone provides towards it is a great thing to do. Its a "a way to crowdsource human resources" and that is certainly something that will help to provide fair distribution of a community coin. Its like being part of the currency and its growth and therefore you invest your time to earn rewards in that particular currency. On top of that whales cant just buy big shares of the coin as easy. I feel that if ICO's with a good product could manage to distrubute their tokens solely based on this model, without the majority of the tokens being distributed in exchange for money, than this can do really good. If thats not the case than IBO is just rebranding the more or less obligatory bounty campaigns that almost every project has.

That's true. I referred to that. These "suppliers" of marketing might only take cash. However, you would be able to pay a marketer in "equity" and you could still have a "bounty" be providing the company with cash, or am I missing something?

Anyway, this is just like how a lot of start-ups operate now. They pay their employees with equity and minimal cash, except this is more like paying your 1099's in equity too with the idea they can cash out much sooner because there is no need to IPO. Creating liquidity for your token is paramount, this facilitates that.

If performing an action in order to get some coins is called IBO then ICOS have been doing IBO since the beginning so to me this does not seem like anything new at all, so unless that the only way to earn coins is through bounties then this solves nothing and is not really an innovation.

Crowd source time? I think you lack a bit of knowledge about how cryptos work...


I hope you do know that Cryptocurrencies are built on a ton of code?
For the ton of code, you need developers.
For developers, you need money, which you could get through having them pay themselves by entering the bounty campaign and obtaining tokens, but what about the organisation of it all?

After all, someone must be on top, making sure everyone who works well gets paid. What does this person want? Money. Where is that money coming from? No idea. Maybe he pays himself a bounty, but who's controlling that? How much would he get?

Sure, it's possible to avoid the involvement of money completely, but it's not quite as easy as it may seem and these articles lack details about  how it'd work. It looks like it's made for the newbies to read, so they join it and get in to cryptos, etc.

OK, i understand what IBO stands for but, is it not something similar like hiring someone to do a specific task?

I think an emphasis on Bounty would be good for startups who are either more community-focused (perhaps by temperament) or where building brand recognition is the higher priority. You can also structure the bounties to reward coding and other needed skills as well