It is all-to-common with cryptocurrency projects, to be asked “what’s the price?”

(Often conveyed in cryptospeak as ‘when lambo?‘)

This is an important question, in many ways, because for most people investing in cryptocurrency, they are all hoping the price will raise past the value they bought.

Of course, it is also important to the Freeos community that the price of the token is a good, fair, and useful value. But since Freeos allows ongoing, and sustainable earnings, there are other ways to look at the value of a FREEOS token.

And while we are looking at these ways for the community to value FREEOS, we’ll end up brushing up alongside the values of Freeos.

The Value of Time

Now the Freeos Economic System is a bit different than most, because the investment—for most people—is time to earn (and willingness to mint!).

And since time is one of our most precious commodities (we only get so much), the natural, logical way to look at Freeos is: How do you value your time?”

What is a week of your life worth to you?

Being given a token that represents your value, as a human being, how much is this worth?

How much are we all worth?

If the community can look at Freeos as being a currency that represents—and values—each participant’s time, then we can come to find a consensual value that none are willing to sell below.

NOTE:* In the first week of the AirClaim, the community-driven price of FREEOS has been averaging around $0.06 USD. If this price can—at least—be maintained by the community, it has the potential to pull billions of people out of poverty and make history (when the earnings increase to provide ~1000 FREEOS a week). What is the potential worth of repairing a far-reaching societal issue that has long plagued humanity?*

Mine, not Undermine

Earning FREEOS is a bit like mining Bitcoin in the early days. Anyone could mine Bitcoin on a laptop.

The big difference is that Bitcoin didn’t start with an established price. It wasn’t until early exchanges (or buying pizzas) appeared to buy and sell Bitcoin, that it started to establish a price. It was a long road, and united community effort of people believing in the potential of Bitcoin to make this happen.

Once Bitcoin could be bought and sold, the miners started to need to factor in their electricity costs, and the cost of new equipment (as Bitcoin became more and more expensive to mine over time).

This led to miners refusing to sell Bitcoin for lower than what it cost to mine it. And this created a type of consensual price threshold that the community of miners refused to go below. Otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable for any of them. What was good for the individual was good for the group.

The Freeos Economic System doesn’t require increasing costs of hardware + electricity to earn, and mint, FREEOS tokens. There are some costs involved, however.

In the AirClaim, there are staking and holding requirements (see this article here to learn more).

After 25 weeks from the start of the AirClaim, the Governance Phase starts, which represents the real Freeos Economic System. In this Phase, there will be introduced a Mint Fee.

Once this Mint Fee is introduced, the dynamics of Freeos will be more akin to Bitcoin mining. Costs will need to be paid to ensure future earnings can be maintained. This will hopefully help the community come to a consensual agreement of what they value their FREEOS tokens to be, and not to undercut each other.

Choices and Voices

Although the AirClaim is fairly simple, the upcoming Governance Phase starts to provide the community of participants the ability to choose, and have a say, in the direction of the economy—together.

The Freeos Economic System is transitioning to a framework of direct democracy, where each person has a say and can make meaningful choices about their collective economic outcome.

Are you more concerned about the inflation rate, and how to protect your FREEOS holdings’ value (more than merely the amount of next week’s claim)? Then you can vote on a lower inflation rate.

Do you want to grow diverse reserve pools for the Freeos Economic System, to help deepen liquidity and help protect against future market crashes? Then vote on the Mint Fee to be cheaper in xBTC, XPR, xETH, xUSDC than FREEOS, to encourage the Mint Fee to be paid in other diverse assets to grow the Liquidity and Reserve Pools.

Do you want to reduce the amount of FREEOS in circulating supply? Then vote to send any FREEOS paid in the Mint Fee to be burned (decommissioned from circulation). (Maybe, also vote for FREEOS to be the cheapest for the Mint Fee to encourage FREEOS to be burned).

Do you want to make a stand, to reduce the selling of FREEOS if it drops below a certain value? Then vote for a locking threshold price that represents this line in the sand, where you—and the community—are willing to have a portion of their POINTs locked if the price dips below this agreed value—putting the brakes on FREEOS entering the market temporarily.

The Freeos community will have many choices—and combinations of choices—to help create economic shifts that match the reality of the markets in real time.

With Freeos, you have a choice and a say in your own economic outcome—one that not only benefits yourself, but also benefits everyone else. This is a type of freedom that is missing from our entire global political and financial system. We are often at the mercy of financial systems, not having a direct say or influence.

What other money system provides this type of freedom and choice? How much is choice worth to you? How valuable is your voice? How valuable are our collective choices and voices in unity?

The Value of Trust

There are plenty of cynical perspectives on whether cryptocurrencies have any true value, other than speculation.

A counter to this cynical perspective is, what is the value of trust?

With Bitcoin, the protocol created one of the most secure, incorruptible money systems, with large amounts of redundancy built-in. With Bitcoin, you knew that the value you held in your wallet, was exactly the amount of Bitcoin you had. Nobody could change the numbers in your bank account. No corrupt individual could siphon a bit on the side as the Bitcoin was minted. The minters couldn’t collude to change the parameters to suit only themselves, or their friends. And every transaction is transparently on-chain, and open, viewable and auditable by all. Bitcoin essentially created a high-trust, digital currency that didn’t need a central authority just to be trusted. Trust was inherently built into the system design.

So, perhaps Bitcoin’s value is underpinned by a few layers—not just speculation.

1. The consensual value that Bitcoin miners are not willing to go under, due to ongoing costs, such as electricity and hardware.
2. The value of trust, that Bitcoin not only represents, but has demonstrably proven.
3. Speculation, belief and market forces that are like the choppy waves, but don’t represent the entire ocean.

It can be observed that national currencies are often valued by how comparatively trustworthy they are. The currencies that are valued highly tend to be in stable countries with strong economies, good systems of support for their people and other progressive factors. This creates a level of trust in these nations, their economies, and ultimately in their national currency.

Companies are also often valued, with the lens of trust. How reliable, useful are their products or services? How does a company fulfill its promises to its clients and its customers? How transparent, and professional is the team, and its leadership? These factors can often underpin the value of a company’s stock.

But central authorities can shift on their trust level over time. A nation that was once full of trust and promise can change over generations. A company that was once a staunch advocate for quality delivering value, can shift to become mired in scandal, cutting corners, and greed. Centralised trust is often easier to initiate, but it is not always easier to maintain indefinitely.

And the loss of trust—whether society, business, or government—costs money. Corruption erodes value, security systems need to be put in place, legal systems are strained. Flow of transactions slow down.

With trust, things move quickly and efficiently, transactions are easy and free. Fewer protections need to be built. Increased trust = increased freedom. And this has—and generates—value.

How much is a fast, freely accessible, freely transactable, system where everyone has an equal say, and equal earnings worth?

Freeos, being an economic system on the robust, fast, gas-free, friction-free Proton and Dfinity IC blockchains provides a built-in, structural level of trust.

Additionally, with Proton’s Know-Your-Customer (KYC) solution, the Freeos participants can feel assured that one person = one vote = equal earnings. Again, this provides some certainty against bad actors, providing an additional layer of trust.

Furthermore, the FreeDAO Foundation will migrate to an on-chain governance system where qualified delegates can be selected into leadership positions, while being fully accountable (by being voted out at any time) by the Freeos participants.

So Freeos will transition to an efficient, capable, decentralised, fair, transparent, and accountable governance system—as well as paving the way for many new products, tools and technologies, markets, partners and more, to enhance, support and promote Freeos. And did we mention: with full transparency and accountability?

How much is this level of trust worth?

Some Handy Guidelines

In summary, there are a number of factors that can help the community value the FREEOS they are minting, conveyed by these guidelines:

• Value FREEOS like your time. In the Freeos Economic System, you earn per week. How much is a week’s worth of time worth to you? Time is a finite resource.
• Mine, don’t Undermine. Undercutting the price only hurts your future earnings, your current holdings—as well as everyone else’s.
• How much is your choice, your freedom worth? We don’t always get such a key, and direct, say in our own, and collective, economic outcome. So a system that allows this, should be valued for providing this rare opportunity. Let the FREEOS token represent the price of your freedom.
• Trust is invaluable. When it is abundant, it improves the value and quality of everything infused with it. The Freeos Economic System is built on foundations of trust—and will be enhancing levels of trust moving forward. This means FREEOS tokens represent this trusted value, and the more we value trust, the more we should value our FREEOS.

So if anyone asks, “when lambo?”, point them to these values, and how to value FREEOS. And if you have any insights to add, feel free to share them in our community channels such as Twitter, Discord and Telegram. We can update this article over time to represent our strengthening, collective values.