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The Economics No Coin Dev Teaches

  1. The Economics No Coin Dev Teaches — Buybacks, Utility, and Why DevCoin Failed

Almost every token launch teaches its holders nothing about economics. It ships a coin, points at a chart, and hopes. A few developers have *gestured* at doing better — the DevCoin experiment (2013–14) around iGotSpots paid open-source contributors and writers from a shared pool, an early attempt to tie a coin to real work — but **no coin developer has ever made a point of both teaching this economics and practicing it.** MELEK's position, argued for over a decade in the operator's own writing<ref>Bitcointalk, "In Response to Peter Schiff", https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5582327.0 (VanKushFamily)</ref>, is that a sound token economy is *taught to its community* and *practiced by its issuer* — not left to speculation. This article is the capstone of the Economics 101 series and states that stance plainly.

This is an **educational, neutral** reference. It is **not investment, financial, or legal advice**, it makes **no price prediction**, and it does not tell anyone what or when to trade (see § Not investment advice).

Summary

Three ideas, each covered in its own article, come together here: **buybacks** (Token Buybacks, Market Fees, and the UIA Lineage) as a transparent act of issuer commitment; **real utility and outside revenue** as what makes a token *spendable* rather than merely tradeable; and **honest supply** (Tokenomics 101, Inflation and Deflation — Token Emission and Burns) as the thing DevCoin got wrong. The through-line is **education over speculation**: a community that understands supply, walls, liquidity, and buybacks makes better decisions than one that is sold a dream<ref>Bitcointalk, "In Response to Peter Schiff", https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5582327.0</ref>.

What a buyback actually is (and why a dev would do one)

Stated plainly, as in the source thread: *"A buyback is when you buy your coin back — you spend money on the market to get them back."*<ref>Bitcointalk, "In Response to Peter Schiff", https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5582327.0</ref> The point is not to promise a price. A buyback funded by **real revenue** is an issuer putting earnings back into the token — either **burning** what it buys (reducing supply) or adding it to **protocol-owned liquidity** (deepening the market). It is a visible signal of commitment that participants can see and plan around. It is treasury discipline, not a price guarantee — see the buyback article for the mechanics and the hard compliance line (Token Buybacks, Market Fees, and the UIA Lineage).

Utility: why "you can't buy gold with it — yet"

A token is not truly money until you can spend it on real things, and you cannot spend it on real things until it has **real utility and liquidity** behind it. This is the argument in marsresident's well-known Steem piece, "Why can't I buy gold with STEEM yet"<ref>Steemit, @marsresident, "Why can't I buy gold with STEEM yet", https://steemit.com/steemit/@marsresident/why-can-t-i-buy-gold-with-steem-yet</ref>;[1]: speculation alone never makes a coin *spendable*; utility and outside revenue do. MELEK's answer is to build the utility first — a whole play-and-earn economy, real services, and outside revenue — so the token has somewhere to *be used*, not only traded.

Why DevCoin failed — oversupply, not the idea

DevCoin's idea was good: pay contributors and writers a monthly share of a coin pool for real work. It failed on **supply**. Roughly 180 billion coins were issued — far more than the demand could absorb — so the value deflated toward nothing and the monthly payout shrank with it[2]<ref>Bitcointalk, "In Response to Peter Schiff", https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5582327.0</ref>. The lesson is not "don't pay contributors"; it is **keep supply tight and fair-launched so a contributor's share holds its worth.** MELEK keeps issuance tight and no-premine for exactly this reason (Tokenomics 101).

Teach it, and do it

That is the whole stance. We **teach** the economics — this Economics 101 series in the Library of Ashurbanipal, and the step-by-step how-to in the Witness School — and we **do** it: real buybacks through the token-management front end, honest fair-launch supply, outside revenue behind the token, and the discipline that Selling Isn't Profit — You Have to Buy to Sell Higher describes. A community that is taught how markets work, by a project that practices what it teaches, is the thing no coin dev has bothered to build. This is that.

Not investment advice

Nothing here is investment, financial, tax, or legal advice. It describes economic mechanics and a project philosophy for education only. Buybacks are token-management and treasury discipline, **never** a promise that any token will rise in value. No content here is a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or time any asset. Do your own research; consult a licensed professional for financial decisions.

Sources

Coverage

Capstone of the Economics 101 series. Ties the buyback mechanics, the utility/spendability argument, and the DevCoin oversupply lesson into one stance — teach the economics and practice it. Educational and neutral; not investment advice; no price predictions.

References

  1. knowledge/cryptocurrency/steem_economics_marsresident.json
  2. knowledge/cryptocurrency/devcoin_history.json

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