It's pretty simple guys. David Johnson talked about companies wanting to enter billions of entries. I am personally looking for Factom to CONSERVATIVELY have 1 billion entries per month within one year from now. Let's say 10 entries per EC so that means 100,000,000 EC's burnt per month just from companies Factom Inc is already talking to. At .001 EC/Factoid, that means 100,000 Factoids burnt per month. That means, within one year, I believe Factoids will be a deflationary digital currency.
I believe trying to value Factoids based upon the equations you guys are throwing around is very short sighted. It would be like trying to value Microsoft before they signed that first IBM contract to provide them the DOS operating system. Bill Gates had identified an ENORMOUS and HIGHLY LUCRATIVE niche that needed filled and he had put together the team necessary to execute on that vision.
How do I value Factom and how am I investing here? I am investing as if we're dealing with Microsoft, circa 1980.
Why would you assume anything other than one entry per EC, which is the current situation?
I think Factom is a great idea but I am not really sure to be honest how anybody is making money here, or why the Factoid cryptocoins issued at ICO have any real value. Once M3 starts, the price of those Factoids created by inflation (878K per year) can be priced at whatever "price" is necessary to make them generate the required number of ECs at 0.001 cent per EC to support the annual data rate. This "price" would burn all annual Factoid coins produced by inflation, and result in a sustainable steady state.
But....why do Factoids issued at ICO have any value at all in this steady-state scenario? ICO Factoids are not needed for burning to create ECs - that is taken care of by the inflationary Factoids. Thus ICO Factoids are functionally useless. There is no reason
other than a psychological one to tie the price of ICO Factoids we hold today to inflationary Factoids that will be created tomorrow and burned to create the necessary number of ECs to run the Factom project.
I don't disagree with the Microsoft 1980 analogy - but holders of ICO Factoids aren't holding shares of Microsoft, they are holding 5 inch DOS floppy disks that will never be sold.
No, they're not shares in Microsoft, you're right. But they're a representation of the value of those shares in Microsoft because if Microsoft is successful, that means a whole bunch of people are using their software.
From the Factom FAQ:
How are Factoids created?
Two ways. Factoids will be created as a part of the crowd sale. Secondly, Factoids will be
created at a fixed rate and paid to the Factom Servers and Audit Servers for their work
running the system, and to pay other incentives.
From a conversation I had with Brian Deery:
Could you please link me to such a comment as I can't seem to find it.
https://www.youtube.com/v/X3rM2TQJt7o&start=314&end=359&version=3Let me expound on why I like the analogy.
Factom is being built by experienced professionals with a history of delivering finished products. The median age of the team is probably around ~40 years old.
Factom is a protocol optimized for securing truckloads of data, in order to deliver useful business/societal value. It is operating at the frontiers of technology as well.
Factoids are not trying to be money. They are to serve as the hardware reward mechanism coupled with the user antispam mechanism. Factoid value is a prediction on the use of Entry Credits. This is in contrast to Bitcoin being money; a store of value with lunar potential.
That being said, I am predicting many Entry Credits will be used.
Thank you. I think I'll pick up a few more FCT.
If (and I don't believe this) you are correct that ICO factoids are useless and won't appreciate in value the more the network is used, that's fine as well because I'll end up with shares in Factom Inc. as part of the settlement. No biggie.
It really is simple guys. According to the people who created this system, the price of Factoids will increase as more Entry Credits are burned. I believe a boatload of Entry Credits are going to be burned and as such, I am continuing to buy Factoids and will for some time. Barring normal speculative fluctuations, if the number of EC's burned continues to increase but the price of Factoids does not, then Factom Inc has a problem.