The importance of PRE token.
A short history: Upon launch of Presearch the token Max supply was 1B at some point the team decided to burn or reduce the max supply down to 500M where it remained for years. Upon new leadership taking over the Team decided to increase the Max supply back to 1B for various reasons which is where it is at today. Max supply is different than the current or circulating supply in that the Max Supply is part of the token contract. A token can have a locked or unlocked contract locked means it cannot be changed whereas unlocked means it can be changed. Current supply is now 750M with the Max supply set at 1B.
Some questions, concerns, and warnings: The question the community, token investors, and most reputable exchanges require an answer to - Is the token contract now LOCKED meaning no more changes can be made to the token to include Max supply? I believe the answer is yes this was required by reputable exchanges in order to even be considered for a listing. But would like confirmation from the Team that the ERC-20 and COSMOS token contracts are both locked.
Now that the token is being developed to go cross chain starting with COSMOS, obviously a different network than Ethereum, what is the plan to keep the total PRE tokens on all chains capped at 1B? I believe the Team has stated they plan to use an on-chain bridge that will move some portion of ERC-20 PRE into a locked smart contract that will then allow for the Minting of a COSMOS PRE token in the exact portion to those that are sent to the bridge smart contract. Each new network token contract should all have the same locked token contract with same Max supply. However, this alone is not enough there needs to be clear transparency with the bridging mechanism to ensure only 1B tokens max across all networks is ever possible otherwise the Team could inflate the supply by 1B with every new network that is added. Team please confirm.
Due to the high number of staked tokens and limited remaining circulating supply this was part of the reason/need to reset the Max supply to 1B. The other reason is that the token utilities are all inflationary meaning 1-way outflows from treasury into the circulating supply. The token itself has horrible fundamentals and tokenomics because there is only tokens flowing 1-way out of the treasury. As explained this is highly inflationary and currently limited only by a capped max supply. The only reason to buy and hold the tokens long term is if you believe the Team will be able to close the loop on the token fundamentals creating enough token flow back into treasury to at least offset the outflows but ideally create a NET inflow to treasury for the project. Meaning they develop/create enough great appealing consumptive utilities that will decrease the inflation and eventually offset it completely. Best case scenario is more tokens flowing into treasury than are coming out, at which point tokens can be sold on the open market by the team for income. If that is ever achieved PREsearch will remain a competitor in perpetuity competing for marketshare and continuing payouts according to the value provided to the network. They could even use the NET income in PRE as a means to further develop, incentivize, and enhance the project.
Solving this token flow and rate of inflation is critical to the viability of this project. Admittedly I think some of the Team and Tim understands this which is why they created more runway for the project by increasing the Max supply from 500M to 1B and almost immediately minting an additional 250M tokens (now we are up to 750M of the total 1B Max supply). While at the same time they decreased the Search rewards and slashed the Node rewards (treasury outflows). This was done to reduce the rate of inflation on the token or cost to the project providing even more runway or time until the project outflows reach its Max supply at which point the project could fail. Why could it fail? They already increased max supply from 500M to 1B (useable circulating supply from 500M - 750M) and reduced the rate of inflation (treasury outflows). If there are too many token outflows (search rewards, node rewards, referral bonuses, AirDrops, KUCOIN rewards) and not enough income and/or PRE inflows to sustain those rewards people supporting the network won’t get paid and the project fails. Of course they could try to once again increase the Max Supply but if they answer above on the token contract is locked they would have to create another token which they might try to do if it came to that. But credibility would be totally lost as that potential reality becomes more likely.
Since learning about this project almost 3 years ago I have actively tried to get the Team and Community to realize this fundamental issue and ATTACK IT HEAD ON! People keep claiming its not a big deal the Team can use FIAT income and buy tokens on the open market so there doesn’t need to be consumptive PRE utilities. This is partially True but there are 2 primary issues with this course of action.
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TRUST - If we allow the project to go this route we are then relying on a growing Team and venture capital investors from various rounds who all want their FIAT and a bigger piece of the FUTURE PREsearch revenue pie. It would require them to transparently buy PRE with that FIAT on the open market and pay everyone contributing to the network fairly. This is a fairytale unless we have access to the books in perpetuity which will never happen. I don’t trust that there would be sufficient transparency of revenue vs buy-backs in order for all contributors to the Presearch ecosystem node runners, searchers, and other contributors to be fairly rewarded with the growth. What will eventually happen with this is the 20% of all income that should be paid out to nodes according to the white paper would turn into 18%, 15%, 10%, 2%, …just enough to pay rewards without ever sharing in any of the growth of the ecosystem. The investors will take all the growth and revenue while the community gets pennies holding their $.02 PRE bags. This traditional corrupt model that leverages the promise of what crypto could be but instead uses it to step on the backs of unsophisticated token investors while they improve their own FIAT profits is antithetical to everything crypto and this project was created for. I will not stand by and simply allow myself or the community to be taken advantage of while a few investors benefit greatly. This is not what drew me and likely most other community members to Presearch we all read and saw a different model and different future. I am also not saying that this is the current plan but I certainly don’t see any clear signals to convince me otherwise at this time. However if that is the new direction which is not what the original vision was, I want nothing to do with this project.
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Token liquidity and velocity - The other primary issue is token liquidity and velocity or token flow. If there are no appealing consumptive uses for PRE the token only flows out into the hands of node and search stakers or keyword stakers all of which becomes stagnant PRE at best or worst case increasing the rate of token inflation and cost on the project (more PRE staked for rewards = greater outflows required from treasury assuming they don’t cut them further which is always a possibility). You get to a point where there is no liquidity to even purchase enough PRE to sustainably pay out rewards.
What’s the solution? Transparency something the community has been begging for… of course increasing appealing PRE consumptive utilities… and creating avenues for community members, investors, and the Team to share in the growth potential of the project instead of being powerless bystanders that will easily be taken advantage of. This is why I made all the recommendations and proposals for a consumptive multi AI portal, staking or consumptive AI on behalf of another user (to help influence a new user’s change to Presearch, we need tools to convince people to change), keywords, ad ownership, communities, etc. If the community alongside investors, and the Team were all given equal opportunity to share in the future growth potential of the project and assurance through actions and development towards these ends then you would get much greater enthusiasm from the community and staunch lifetime users, supporters, and advocates for this project.
The alternative of continued token inflation, no transparency, investors taking over the profit and revenue streams at least for a time (until community sees what is happening), while the community gets less and less value is not sustainable and will ultimately fail. People will find a better option that doesn’t just use them like all the other providers have and they will move on.
I like the development of salad AI, the team should and could add a dozen more AI options and continue to keep adding more as they continue to develop. This would be very positive. I also like the idea of communities and if done right could also be very positive. An update to keywords if done right could be very positive. Ad ownership, consumptive utilities, etc. So there is still a lot of potential but we need to see transparency and a clear vision for a future community based sustainable project.