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Comment by the_pwner224 | Hacker News Reader

I agree that it is an intriguing concept. But at the same time they seem to be ready to sell Kong for $$$. And they don't explain why there are three tiers of rarity to the cash - shouldn't 500 KONG == 500 KONG all the time every time? Seems like a mechanic to raise more money, just like 'rare' cosmetic items in video games.

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The "tiers" are just bundle names. We could have been super dry but decided to make it more like collectable cards packs; our expectation is that most people will buy Kong since it looks cool (that's totally fine with us). Our margin on Kong is typical of other startup hardware projects; not great. We're not raking in cash from a digital token sale.

We've made a physical product, we'll sell it to cover the costs of doing so.

I agree that they do look cool. They remind me of euro notes but turned up a notch or two.

But I'm wondering what made you decide to go with the generic greek bust heads? Missed opportunity to depict some cryptography and computer pioneers imo.

They’d probably get sued if some of those portraits were of people still alive today.

Some of the design elements are skeuomorphic throwbacks to traditional currencies.

One design pattern among currencies is "person on front, place on back" - we didn't want Kong to be too geographically local so we picked the planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Luna, etc) for the places and the associated Roman pantheon. Romans used currency while Greeks famously didn't. (Lydians aside.)

Yeah see “startup” is the problem word there. That implies you have a product. You have a cool hobby project, but there’s no use case.

I’m so curious why people think (and it’s certainly not just you, I see this attitude all over) that it is possible to run a business without providing value to customers.

We've sold and are selling products to customers. That seems to constitute utility for someone as well as fit into the definition of a "business".

This is a truly unbelievable answer to the question you were asked.

You think? If someone is paying them money for the manufacturing of goods, then regardless of the value and utility of those goods, I’d say they have a business.

It's a dark world where the fact that someone will pay for something/someone is, alone, proof of utility.

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