You can issue the ICO first, and then when the money pours in, disappear and you don't have to bother with that pesky "work" part.

> If I invent a new messenger protocol, how does a cryptocurrency enable me to make money on that protocol better than any other method?

This is my limited understanding:

1) You want to allow users to send and businesses to receive (micro-)payments within your messenger/protocol.

2) You want to allow users donate/vote/gift/award other users/groups/posts with their tokens within your messenger.

3) You want to allow users create custom (chat-)bots which could apply some scripted logic to send/receive tokens; etc.

Inventing a new distributed messenger/protocol with cryptocurrency, you essentially create (and own) a new platform with services operating on "virtual money". Rules of money (tokens) distribution in theory must be guaranteed by your protocol implementation (usually presented via whitepaper).

If potential future users like your idea (whitepaper), they may invest into your new shiny platform via ICO (with other cryptocurrencies) to get some of your initial (limited) tokens. They want to get them while they cost less than they potentially will cost later, if your platform becomes popular. It's assumed that in the case of an open distributed blockchain platform, amount and belonging of tokens won't be able to be painted by you, but guaranteed by algorithms and public network.

We've seen how it works on totally scam projects. And apparently, we'll have a chance to witness how this works out in case of the already popular platform[1].

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/15/inside-telegrams-ambitious...

Telegram is a great example for me to finally start understanding how this is supposed to work.

It seems like a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem (at least in the way I keep seeing it described): you fund your project/app/scam with money from your ICO, but you only get money from your ICO when people believe in your project enough to put ("real") money in it prematurely.

At best, this is basically the Kickstarter model that everybody likes to trash, is it not?

Your assumption is wrong, that is why you do not understand. The inventor could, or could not receive money. This is the beauty of an open and decentralizes invention. The inventor is not the owner.

But people who participate and invest from the start can make money if the project succeeds. So the economic incentives for those involved are greater than the incentives in a walled garden.

The guy I'm replying to was saying that crypto coins enables someone who invents a protocol to get paid, my dude. It's not an assumption on my part, I was replying to what he said.

You certainly have a point: it doesn't make sense for all kinds of protocols. I would say that coins are a good fit for contexts that involve decentralized service provision of some sort. Also in situations that could benefit from a decentralized database (blockchain), though those are surprisingly rare.

There actually already exists a coin connected to messaging protocols, Kin. I don't see much practical use for it however.

This feels like it’s going to provide a horrible amount of friction as a user. It’s basically adding multiple use specific currencies to everyday life. I predominately work across pounds, dollars, euros and Icelandic krona the latter for day to day and the rest for occasional transactions. If I have to add to that multiple service tokens just to access storage or chat or services x, y and z it adds a whole lot of trading and market following overhead. Particularly given the volatility we’ve seen in crypto currencies, especially amongst those with niche uses. Further following Bitcoin it seems like the decentralisation aspects are theoretical rather than practical as those able to provide a service such as mining seem to do better at scale and end up centralising anyway.