We identified three types of tokens:
Debt Tokens
Equity Tokens
User Tokens.
User tokens
User tokens , or 'appcoins' as Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan have called them, are a form of digital currency needed to access the service provided by the distributed network.
As Union Square Venture managing partner Albert Wenger explains, you can think of these as tokens you buy at a fair to get on a ride.
In ethereum, for example, you need ether to build distributed apps on the platform. In the case of Sia, a distributed storage system, you need to own Siacoins to store files in the network.
User tokens are earned by providing value to these networks.
Contributions can take the form of mining, as in bitcoin, ethereum and Sia, or publishing stories, as in Steemit. Since user tokens are on a blockchain, they can be easily redeemed for any local or cryptocurrency.
Equity tokens
Equity tokens are used to finance the development of the network, but are not needed to access the services provided by the underlying protocol. As its name suggests, we can see 'equity tokens' as cryptographic shares of a network.
In exchange for investment, equity token holders are entitled to "dividends" in the form of revenue sharing or transaction fees in the network. For example, in the case of Sia, 3.9% of all successful storage payouts go to the holders of Siafunds, their equity token.
In many cases, these equity tokens represent shares of a distributed autonomous organization (DAO). A DAO's code is responsible for issuing the tokens, holding the money collected from the token sale, and contracting a company to develop the network.
Besides receiving a pro-rated reward, equity token holders in the form of DAO shares are usually entitled to pledge on proposals for how the investment money will be used.
That's the case of Digix, an asset-tokenisation platform built on ethereum. DGD token holders:
Receive a reward on the transaction fees of the Digix Gold Network
Are able to submit and vote proposals on the DigixDAO.
Debt Tokens
A third type of token is the 'debt token'.
We can see these as a 'short term loan' to the network, in exchange for an interest rate on the amount lent. Steemit is one of the few networks with debt tokens, issued in the form of Steem Dollars.
Steem, the cryptocurrency mined by the network, can be used to buy Steem Power or Steem Dollars. Holders of Steem Dollars receive a ~10% interest rate, paid in Steem Dollars.
Steem Dollars are unique to the economics of the Steemit protocol.
Through buying Steem Dollars, people can invest in the network with sufficient liquidity, without committing to the two-year vesting period to which Steem Power holders are subjected.
We see networks with multiple combinations.
These include networks with:
Both user and equity tokens (Sia, Digix)
Only user tokens (bitcoin, ethereum)
Only equity tokens (Golem, SingularDTV)
User, equity and debt tokens (Steemit).
http://www.coindesk.com/tokens-crowdsales-startups/
