Is Medibit a unit of value? Let’s explore its “tokenomics” aka artificial economies

Afsheen Jafry
6 min readFeb 19, 2019

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Value for any currency is subjective, & a matter of perspective. In this post I exhibit the value of Medibit Token (MDB), & how it is capable of incentivise itself.

Hey..glad you are here to read my post. 😃

For those of you who are new to this space, let me introduce myself. I am the COO, Project Owner & Developer of Medibit STO Project. In this post, I aim to exhibit how Medibit (MDB)- the token, is a unit of value.

As we are rapidly progressing towards our first Crowd STO sales, hopefully by Spring ’19, our focus at present is very much ‘lasered’ to a fundamental question “how would Medibit, our own ERC20 token incentivise itself?”. Actually let me rephrase it: “will Medibit appreciate in its value?”

Similar to real economies, token economies are equally prone to problems such as inflation, volatility, and crashes. The outcome of these problems is that long term viability of a blockchain business, similar to ours, gets affected. On the positive side of the picture, token economies make it possible for automatic data collection on transactions along with calculating useful metrics such as the total traded volume or the velocity. It goes with out saying, that probability of price manipulation of tokens/digital currencies/alt-coins/cryptocurrency is almost next to impossible, unlike the fiat, and unless they are traded on a centralised exchange. Of course there’s always a probability of cyber-security breaches to manipulate the token price. However given the true nature of technologies in question i.e. blockchain and cryptography, security breaches are almost impossible.

Understanding the long-term viability of Medibit tokenomics

“The hows and whys of implementing a token within an ecosystem such that people can use it to exchange goods and services in that ecosystem comprise are called tokenomics” Utsav Jaiswal

To really scrutinise the long-term viability of our token, I’ll be addressing 8 questions raised by Utsav Jaiswal in his article What is tokenomics and how it can make or break your ICO? His post received 556 claps at the time of writing, which means its fairly popular here on Medium and agreed upon by many.

Medibit (MDB) ERC20 Token

1. Does Medibit has any utility within the ecosystem?

Yes, it does. Medibit is an ERC20 token, which means it is forked from Ethereum, hence supports the wider ecosystem growth. Not only that, since it will be a native digital currency in its own market place called Medibit Dapp/platform, the utility is fairly visible.

2. Is the token capable of resisting inflationary pressures?

Inflationary pressure refers to the “demand and supply-side pressures that can cause a rise in the general price level. Demand-pull inflationary pressure is greatest when actual GDP exceeds potential GDP causing a positive output gap.” So what cause inflation? Generally speaking “economists believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by an excessive growth of the money supply.” Implying above 2 definitions on to the token-economies, we can conclude that a token that is in limited supply resists inflationary pressure. Next, we can also conclude that the supply/demand of the token is managed by creating a long-term demand for the token. Exploring further:

a. Medibit has limited total supply 100,000,000;

b. 50% of the total token supply is locked for 5 years; and 10% founders’ tokens locked for 2 years. This practice is also known as vesting, ensuring that tokens are released in the market in a well-managed manner;

d. 40% of the total token supply will be released during multiple crowd sales events within first 2 years of announcing Crowd Token Sales Event.

e. In the following 5 years, the remaining 50% of locked tokens, would be released within strategically-designed schedule. The token sales would be announced well-ahead of time.

3. Is Medibit, is scalable/denominational?

Yes, it can be bought in 18 fractions.

4. Is Medibit a store of value?

First and foremost, let me be very honest here. Value is subjective, hence you may or may not agree with me and that is totally fine. You don’t have to agree if you don’t want to.

Now on to how we, the Medibit Team believes that our token is a store of value. Please note that there are 2 types of tokens when it comes to store of value: native tokens and non-native tokens.

Non-native tokens are usually more speculative. They give you exposure to a startup business that’s looking to use blockchain in some way. These tokens are often required to use in the company’s business you’re betting on. But as a rule, you get no ownership in a public company. Nor can you ever expect a swap for actual shares. The issuers are almost invariably private start-up companies, usually very small, and often with little or no experience.

Native tokens on the other hand, are directly representing the underlying software technology, called blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). Also, please also note that “it takes energy or work or some valuable contribution to create the native token”. Investing in native tokens is like buying the land where a city will be built.

Medibit Token and platform are designed and being developed to offer maximum utility to users (developers, buyer and sellers). In providing this utility, the inherent stickiness associated with the underlying asset are: a. theft immunity, b. credibly low inflation (strict guidelines to keep security threats at lowest possible levels and collective commitment to low inflation) and c. low cost of conversion (utility and decentralisation).

Now on to the most exciting aspect of Medibit as a native token: First 20 million Medibit tokens are/will be sold under the label of “Security Tokens”. This means Medibit drives its value from an external, tradable asset. Because first 20 millions tokens are deemed as a security, they are subject to federal securities and regulations. We proudly claim Medibitcoin Network Pvt. Ltd as complaint with The UK Corporate Governance Code 2018. The rewards of meeting regulations properly mean that Medibit tokens have immensely powerful use-cases.

5. Is Medibit fungible?

Medibit is interchangeable, uniform, divisible, and developed as per ERC20 standard.

6. Would Medibit be acceptable to the people at large?

Medibit is accessible and available for anyone who wants to purchase the token with the purpose of either investing in the project, or buy the tokens now at much cheaper rate and save them for later use to use the service. A quick reminder: we would be offering a service that will address a problem, affection millions of people, every year, across the globe. The problem is misdiagnosis or undiagnosed medical conditions. Medibit platform will be connecting patients seeking 2nd opinion on their diagnosis with consultative healthcare practitioners (specialist doctors), across the globe.

7. Is Medibit traded on an exchange, yet?

Not yet. Being a fairly young company and staying true to the core of blockchain technology, we are still evaluating whether to get listed on centralised or decentralised exchanges. As they say “never say never”, getting listed on centralised exchanges have their own benefits too, such as recognition and liquidity. On the other hand at the time of writing, centralised exchanges don’t list security tokens (in best of my knowledge) and charge quite high fee for listing the token. This leaves tokens subject to price manipulation. Decentralised exchanges such as Coinsutra on the other hand, have transparency at their core, but a lot need yet to be explored.

8. Does Medibit incentivise its use?

Yes, it does. First incentives can be earned by different means: a. exchange of value; b. early bird rewards (bonuses/discounts); c. incentives provided when consultant and patients leave feedbacks/reviews; and d. dividends. Second, users will be rewarded for taking actions on the Platform, with the goal of creating disincentives for malicious or fraudulent behaviour. Third patients will also be rewarded to share their data with our partners for research and development purposes.

Conclusive thoughts

Is Medibit a unit of value? As I always say, value is subjective hence I’ll leave it for you to answer.

EXPLORE MORE: https://www.medibitcoin.co.uk/

Any comment, feedback, improvement suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for reading.

About the Author

I am an entrepreneur, researcher, analyst, crypto-enthusiast & believer. I am also one of the founding members of medibitcoin.co.uk — a blockchain platform (under-development) connecting patients seeking 2nd opinion on their primary diagnostics with consultative healthcare, across the globe. Like my content? 🙂 Follow me on Twitter & Telegram.

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Afsheen Jafry

Values that stay close to me are passion & perceptiveness. I don’t work, I simply follow my passion…passion for knowledge sharing that keeps energy flowing.