In the first article, written a long time ago, I explained what tokenomics is and how it is applied in Montelibero. Also, not long ago, I published a post where I shared my observation that a functioning tokenomics is exactly the unique feature today that distinguishes our community from other offline projects—both libertarian ones and those not concerned with ideology (except, perhaps, Kolionovo, but nothing has been heard from there for a while). Now the time has come for the long-announced second article—about how to enter our tokenomics and how to navigate it.
If you have already moved to Montenegro, the best way is a personal meeting, where everything will be shown to you, they will help you install it, and make sure everything is working. Therefore, the following text is for those who have not yet moved here, which is by no means an obstacle to entering the tokenomics.
In this case, you will most likely need the tokens of our main investment fund MTL, as well as euro-stablecoins EURMTL (at least to receive dividends from the fund). If you intend to limit yourself to this, a special solution has been created for you that requires minimal effort: a wallet in the Telegram bot @MyMTLWalletBot.
Launch the bot and press “Create free account.” That’s it, you have a wallet with two open trust lines: to the EURMTL stablecoin and to the Montelibero investment fund token MTL.
By clicking the Receive button, you will see your public key, which you can use to receive tokens.
Now you just need to contact the fund representatives through another simple Telegram bot @mtl_helper_bot, agree on the purchase of MTL tokens using a payment method convenient for you, provide them with the address from the previous image—and the purchased tokens will arrive there. Subsequently, dividends in EURMTL will arrive at this same address every week.
Sooner or later, you may require more advanced functionality, and then it is definitely worth getting a more serious wallet.
If it is important to you that the wallet does not ask for unnecessary information and has open-source code, your choice is Solar. After installing and launching the application, you can add any number of accounts, although in most cases one will be sufficient.
Now you have an empty account. By entering it, you can click Receive and get your public key, which is also the wallet address where tokens can be sent to you.
When you have just created an account, it cannot be used yet because any operations require the payment of fees in the internal Stellar cryptocurrency, Lumens (XLM). It costs pennies, so just contact the fund representatives through the same @mtl_helper_bot, provide your public key, and they will give you some for free. Only when the first lumens arrive in your wallet will the account be considered created, and the person who sent these lumens will be recorded in the blockchain as the account creator.
So, the first lumens are received, and the account is working. By clicking the menu icon, you can see all the simple functionality of the wallet, in which we are currently interested in the “Assets & Balances” item.
To acquire any tokens other than XLM, you need to open trust lines to them. Click Add Asset To Your Account.
In the window that opens, type “mtl” and you will see the search results. We are interested in the MTL token issued by mtl.montelibero.org (fakes issued by someone else may be found; they should not be added). Click on it to see the token description.
All that’s left is to click ADD ASSET TO ACCOUNT, and the trust line to the token is open. In doing so, 0.5 XLM is frozen; they will be unfrozen if you decide to delete the trust line to the token.
In a similar way, add a trust line to EURMTL—again, choosing specifically the token issued by mtl.montelibero.org from the search results.
That’s it; you have now manually reproduced what was done with one button in the Telegram bot. However, this account is completely under your control.
The Solar wallet is convenient if you want to have several different addresses for different needs and are ready to independently organize the storage of those addresses to which you need to make transfers fairly regularly. Also, using this wallet means that you do not frequently require automatic token-to-token exchange. Otherwise, it makes sense to consider a wallet that is less aligned with advanced ideas of privacy but possesses some additional functionality.
This functionality is provided by the Lobstr wallet, which is used by most of the people who moved to Montenegro. This is a web wallet, which also exists as a mobile application. A simple account setup procedure:
As you can see, the wallet requires an email address, which, in theory, is not necessary for working with crypto. After confirming the email, you can go to settings and save your keys: public (starts with G) and private (starts with S, not visible on the screen, opened by the “Reveal secret key” button). You can also set a Federation address, which is similar in syntax to an email and is therefore easy to remember.
Notifications of operations will then arrive by email, and tokens can be sent to your federation address as well as to your public key. Also, this wallet allows you to save your counterparties in a contact database under human names, which is why I personally value it.
Next, when sending tokens, you have the option to choose a recipient from the contact list.
Select which tokens you are sending and how many. If desired, you can add a short text comment, which will also be recorded in the blockchain. That’s it, you can press Send.
Another advanced feature of this wallet is token exchange. Click Swap assets.
Next, choose which tokens you are selling and which you want to buy. The wallet searches for all open sell/buy orders for all tokens in the Stellar blockchain and tries to build a chain of exchanges that will give you the desired result.
Thus, you can freely exchange a wide variety of tokens. For example, as shown in the screenshot, buy my personal ANCAPCHAN tokens using EURMTL (after first opening a trust line to them). In doing so, firstly, you donate to me; secondly, you receive a collectible token in return; and thirdly, if at some point you decide to get your euros back, you can always sell the token back. Admit it, this is a more flexible scheme than simply sending money to my address.
So, you have chosen the most convenient Stellar wallet for you and mastered the basic operations with it. Now you have the opportunity, for example, to regularly invest part of your ruble earnings into the Montelibero fund (considering that, at the time of writing these instructions, the ruble has an artificially inflated exchange rate due to Russian Central Bank regulations, such a tactic looks very attractive). This is more meaningful than simply donating to the project’s needs because donations are just money, whereas with investments, we also get the minds of investors interested in multiplying capital, not spending it.
After buying your first MTL, you will be added to the token holders’ chat, where investment policy is discussed, and if you are lucky enough to be in the top twenty by share of ownership in the fund, you will gain the right to sign its decisions. Mainly, this means the obligation to certify the dividend payment transaction every Friday, but from time to time, more interesting issues must be resolved. Until a certain threshold of signatures is reached, a decision on a particular payment simply cannot be technically processed.
There is also an option to delegate your voting right to another project participant, and if enough of these accumulate so that their total ownership share puts them in the top twenty, the delegate becomes a signer (I am currently among them for this very reason; my personal ownership share is no longer enough). Our colleague Soz wrote a good guide on how to delegate a vote. Also, you might be interested in his guide on how to support a useful member of the community. Such support will mean more than just a symbolic gesture. The project participant you support becomes part of the distributed government of Montelibero—a collegiate body which, unlike the twenty fund signers, deals not only with the fund but with the project as a whole: where to go, where to advertise, and how to react to challenges.
And further, it is hoped that you will become sufficiently experienced in tokenomics, expand your portfolio from just MTL to tokens of specific businesses that interest you most, and look closely at the surrounding reality, estimating where tokenization could be useful. Ancap is expansive; there is no need to be shy about it. Here, you can admire the list of goods and services that you can already purchase using EURMTL. Your business may also soon find itself on this list.