In many ways, cryptocurrency tokens could well be seen as an emblem of how increasingly accessible, and efficient, cryptocurrencies are becoming in the modern world. Built on a pre-existing blockchain template rather than the original coding necessary for creating coins, tokens lend themselves not just to easy creation, but to applicability to almost every kind of business.

Riding the Hype?

Naturally, many modern businesses choose to make use of tokens as the simplest route to riding the wave of cryptocurrency hype – oftentimes, as many have noted, in what seems to be a rather transparent effort to inject modern appeal into an aging brand.

Very recently, video game corporation Atari announced its intention to launch its own “Atari Token” – and along with it, the “Pong Token” for use in crypto-casinos.

This was met with considerably mixed reactions, with many asserting that Atari – which, though once a giant in the gaming industry, has since fallen out of popular favor, passing between numerous owners and filing for bankruptcy in 2013 – is merely attempting to use the current cryptocurrency craze as a shortcut to modern relevance.

This, naturally, also drew a number of comparisons to similar measures taken by other brands. Earlier in the year, photography company Kodak – another brand which, though once an icon within the industry, has begun to fall into obscurity – announced that it would be launching its own cryptocurrency token, the “KODAKCoin.”

Asserting that it was part of an effort to secure stronger rights ownership to photographers, Kodak scheduled the first KODAKCoin sale for 31 January – a sale which was ultimately delayed. This was met with a similarly skeptical response, with many theorizing, as they later would with Atari, that it was an insincere effort to secure fresh relevance.

Comparisons were also drawn with the Long Island Iced Tea Corporation, which, late last year, announced its intention to change its name to the Long Blockchain Corporation and to establish itself within the cryptocurrency industry.

Though not as long-standing or as struggling for relevance as Atari or Kodak, many nonetheless pointed to this as an example of a brand, many nonetheless pointed to this as an example of a brand making an artificial effort to ride the coattails of cryptocurrency’s success, despite existing in an industry that has existed long before digital currency, and has no substantial connection to it.

Of course, besides fresh popularity, the launching of these tokens has also been, in every case, followed by a dramatic upsurge in stock value for their respective companies. How long this will last, however, is equally contentious.

Newcomers

Naturally, this is hardly to say that cryptocurrency tokens do not have their uses – indeed, they can be a tremendously effective way of facilitating efficiency in services. CEEK, a newly emerging virtual reality company, for instance, recently announced the development of its own VR Token, which would allow holders to enjoy bonuses and collect tokenized rewards within the company’s VR environments.

CEEK’s use of tokens makes sense within the context of its industry and its services, as it provides both the business and the users with a secure, efficient means of facilitating service trade and rewarding customer loyalty.

Moreover, it makes absolute sense that a newly emerging company specializing in a newly developing technology would make an effort to make connections with the trending new phenomena of the modern market – especially those which, like virtual reality, are closely tied to the digital realm.

By contrast, the efforts of more long-standing brands, or brands that exist in industries with little substantial connection to cryptocurrency, to buy into the digital currency craze feels much more like an inevitable side-effect of its growing popularity.

Precisely what effects this will ultimately have on the cryptocurrency market remains to be seen; but it seems unlikely these long-standing brands will be able to make tokens as relevant and useful to their services as modern, cutting-edge newcomers like CEEK.