Stuck at home with plenty of time and not sure what to do? Why not consider tokenizing your personal time?

For most people, the only way to earn money they can trust is by selling their time, usually in the form of a paycheck from a job. Now, the crypto economy holds the promise of a revolutionary disruption in how ordinary people can turn time into money.

By Reuben Bramanathan, Former Head of Product and Legal at Coinbase
Translated by: Perry Wang

The emergence of bounties, grants, personal tokens, along with the rise of remote work, is beginning to break down the boundaries of traditional work. Personal tokens will give rise to an individual economy on the internet: allowing the value of the services you enjoy and the value of the services you provide to flow freely.

Advertisement - Continue scrolling for more content

If your service can produce any digital output, such as code, content, design, or consulting advice, issuing redeemable tokens for the service you provide can be an effective way to make money. If you produce a product, you can tokenize the product instead of your time, like Unisocks.

Personal tokens can drive the internet-native individual economy

In this sense, personal tokens are:

• Replaceable, with a capped supply
• Tradable by anyone through decentralized exchanges
• Equivalent to the reward for an hour of your work or a product

• Market dynamic pricing for your services. How much is your time really worth? You may have a rough idea of its price or what others charge. But personal tokens allow the market to continuously determine the price customers are willing to pay for your services, giving you a clear, real-time data concept of your business.
• Value arbitrage. We all know that the time put into work often does not equate to the rewards gained. In other words, the unit of work time spent for client A often differs greatly in value from the time spent for client B. Through personal tokens, the market can help you allocate work time to the highest value tasks.
• Direct rewards for delivery price. If your work is exceptional and clients appreciate the value you bring, your tokens will receive a premium in the market. The market provides information to clients about the quality and value of your services (and vice versa). While providing quality service to clients should be a given for professionals, changes in the price of personal tokens can make you feel the increase in the value of your unit of work time.
• Early capital intervention. Perhaps you truly want to quit your current job and start your own venture but need to raise some capital in the early stages. Issuing personal tokens for your services can both test the market and fund your startup project. Note that this is not issuing securities or debt, but rather pre-selling services. This is a key distinction between personal tokens and ICOs.
• Winning global customers. Tokens can facilitate global payments for services from anywhere in the world. Who knows how many people globally you can serve and be rewarded for it. You can enter the global market without intermediary platforms. The rise of DAOs and other blockchain-based organizations that need your services may drive demand for tokenized time.
• Spawning ISAs. We have already seen experiments of people tokenizing their future income with Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs). Not just celebrities like NBA star Spencer Dinwiddie, but ordinary people are using ISAs to advance consume or cover expenses against future earnings. By offering ISA tokens to your investors, you can even issue multiple tokens to compensate for the different values you create - time, products, or promotions. Smart contracts can automatically distribute a portion of the income generated from your value-creating tokens to those holding your ISA tokens: potentially a solution to ISA execution issues.

Ultimately, when token holders redeem your tokens, they rely on your commitment to providing the service. If you refuse to provide the corresponding valuable service, they have no effective way to force you to honor this commitment.

Personal tokens require the issuer to fulfill the commitment to provide the service as long as it meets certain standards (work that you are capable of, no involvement in illegal activities). You can refer to the Terms of Service here for this commitment. Any refusal to redeem your tokens will undoubtedly have a negative impact on your personal brand.

Over time, we will see solutions like Aragon Court here and others dealing with disputes and contract enforcement issues.

Essentially, tokenized time is a prepayment for services, not an investment. The token can be used immediately as it is redeemable for your service. This should mean it is less likely to be regulated as a security or other financial product.

Of course, securities regulations involve many nuances, so you should do your research and seek legal advice on this matter.

This article is reproduced with permission from ChainNews, article source: ChainNews (ID: chainnewscom)

Further Reading

• Innovative NBA team with blockchain! Kings team collaborates with ConsenSys to launch a commemorative auction platform
• Inventory of 2020 International Consumer Electronics Show blockchain application products, Taiwan tech startups also nominated

Join now to get the most comprehensive information on financial technology, blockchain knowledge, and industry examples!