There’s been a lot of debate about ‘protocol tokens vs. application tokens’ in the crypto community. Since the space is so new, no one really understands how it will evolve. However, some VC investors with a lot of money made some theses about the evolution of the space, declaring protocol tokens to be ‘superior’ to application tokens. We at Crypto Sailor reject that hypothesis. In fact, in a world of copy-paste altcoins, we like to see real applications. Real applications with real users. And real use case of course.

Today, we discuss one such application to prove our point – FortKnoxster. It is an application that makes clever use of a crypto-token. The token is used to drive the application. The application has a direct use of the token. The strength of the project lies not in creating a new blockchain protocol but in creating an application with real users, willing to use it because of a compelling selling point.

In the case of FortKnoxster, that unique selling point, or USP, is around privacy and variety of communications. All the data on the system is encrypted, which means no company has access to your private data, not even FortKnoxster. This is a real need for both businesses and individuals in a globally connected world that leaks a lot of data about users and systems through everyday conveniences like using a messaging app.

The variety of communications part is also interesting. It does a combination of many things you’ll do with separate apps today – from storing of files like a Google Drive to the chat platform, like Telegram. In fact, the team calls its product ‘Telegram on steroids’, so it does much more than what Telegram does. In addition, all of this is encrypted, which means no third-party can read or listen in to your work or conversations. This is important for trust and privacy, and is what will ultimately drive consumer adoption for the FortKnoxster application.

So why does the app need a token in the first place? Once there are real users using the system, based on the compelling use case of private communications, it is only a matter of time before the amount of data hosted and used by the app explodes. The token is used to ensure that the data is being adequately stored by the peers, in a peer to peer network of sharing data, like IPFS.

Also, the token is used for all the native functions in the app, like upgrading storage for example. As with other applications, it is helpful to have a native currency with the users that is controlled by the system and its users as opposed to external parties and sources. This gives more control to users and developers.

We see compelling projects at all levels – be it protocol layer like Ethereum or application layer like FortKnoxser. The industry is evolving at a rapid rate, and we should welcome applications that make use of the blockchain for their business case. Ultimately, after all, it is applications that end users will use, and that will drive the adoption of blockchain platforms.