Braintrust: Fighting Capitalism with Capitalism

Braintrust pays for everything the network needs through the money it’s raised, the 10% fee Clients pay, and BTRST tokens from the treasury.

Braintrust is a clear distillation of an incredibly important point: good tokenomics can enhance a strong value proposition, but can’t replace a strong value proposition. 

There is no free lunch here. Things that are good for the network inflate the circulating supply, which may be bad for token holders. If you’re a token holder who operates in the network, that’s fine: you’re OK with dilution if it means a lower take on your economic activity. If you’re a purely financial investor, that’s not as great. The float of ... See more

Instead of increasing the fees you charge all of your users, Gurley recommends that marketplaces figure out other ways to make more from those users who want more from you. Back then, he brought up advertising as an example. If you can get some of the suppliers in the marketplace to pay for ads, you can effectively earn a higher take without needin... See more

What can the BTRUST token be used for?  -Governance. This is the most important. Governance has financial value here because it might mean the difference between paying higher fees or not, or even keeping the network alive or not. At some point, if the token value drops and the network is more reliant on fees, participants may decide it’s actu... See more

one key way that a user-owned network can outperform a purely investor-owned one: by giving away something that’s more valuable to recipients than it is to anyone else.

The long and short of it is that now, there’s a direct link between the token price and network volume. More volume creates more demand for the token. As the network grows, there will be more fees to buy more tokens from the open market.

Because Braintrust relies on a protocol for things that humans might do in a normal marketplace, and because it can pay for work that other marketplaces would need to use cash for with tokens, it can keep fees lower (but will need to make it up by giving away ownership). Giving away ownership might actually create more long-term value, because thos... See more

Braintrust doesn’t pay customer acquisition costs in cash, but it does pay them in tokens. That increases circulating supply. As long as Connectors are willing to accept BTRST tokens for their referrals, the system works; but increase circulating supply too much, too fast, the tokens become worthless, and Connectors stop connecting. It’s a delicate... See more