Just when you thought the insanity over cryptocurrencies couldn’t get any worse, a new idea challenges the last one we were scratching our heads about. At a time when some marriages are being recorded on the blockchain, we shouldn’t be surprised that an entrepreneur has decided to tap the crypto craze by tokenizing his time.
Farmer and LavkaLavka founder Boris Akimov announced today that he’s creating his own cryptocurrency using the Waves Platform to tokenize his time and skills. Those who purchase the tokens can then redeem them for some of the Russian entrepreneur’s time.
“The more competent my work, the higher the demand for my skills and knowledge, and the higher the value of the tokens on Waves’ built-in decentralised exchange,” he said in a statement. “Conversely, the lower the quality of my work, the lower the value of the token. The ‘free market’ approach to my own abilities is very appealing and to me, represents one of the great strengths of blockchains and cryptocurrencies.”
Of course, it remains to be seen whether this “approach” to monetizing Boris Akimov’s abilities appeals to anyone other than himself. It sounds like little more than a convoluted gimmick that looks to take advantage of a fad in an unusual way. The tokens he’s creating on the Waves Platform can be redeemed for mere seconds of his time, and he offers a “conservative estimate” to explain what he’s trying to do.
“Let’s take a conservative estimate in which I tokenise two days a week of my time,” Boris Akimov explained. “That’s 16 hours per week, or 832 hours a year. Let’s say that the token will expire after four years, just to reduce risk all round! So that’s 3,328 hours, or 12 million seconds. So the plan is to create 12 million tokens, each of which can be redeemed for a second of my time and skills!”
It’s unclear what, exactly, the Russian entrepreneur might be able to accomplish in a few seconds for buyers lucky enough to get their hands on some of his tokens. In fact, it’s unclear just what kinds of services he offers at all. He founded LavkaLavka, which is a restaurant in Russia, so perhaps restaurant owners could take some lessons from him?
Unsurprisingly, the founder and CEO of the Waves platform raved about Boris Akimov’s idea and plan to tokenize his time. He predicts that we will start to see “a lot more of this kind of thing.”
Caveat emptor!
