The STORJ token has always been a utility token: a cheap way to send value to global SNOs without dealing with fiat in dozens of countries. Being able to use it for a discount on your cloud-storage bills has only ever been gravy. It has never been something you should hold with the expectation that it will be worth more later.
For what it does… it works well enough already. Soon (cross your fingers) it truly will be closed-loop: STORJ buys enough to pay SNOs… then those SNOs sell it back into the market for their local currency. Repeat every month… price won’t matter.
For now STORJ still needs to use some treasury tokens… but if they can convince the community it has other value (like yield from staking returns)… then the price of the token won’t fall so fast… and the remaining pile of treasury tokens will last longer. Or if they can get customers to use it to sweeten other deals (like paying for GPU rentals) that can also extend their runway.
But, IMHO, you should never hold the token. Try to sell it 5 minutes after you see the payout hit your wallet. It was sent to represent the cash-value of work done last month: turn it into cash ASAP.
It’s not good nor bad that it’s for utility: it’s just a tool. Don’t speculate with it
You are right that the token is a means of payment, but in practice settlements are often made annually, not monthly. So an immediate sale is not required. The token is not necessarily a capital asset, but an operational tool that can gain value indirectly if the network usage increases. The main issue for the future is the expansion of the use-case, not just the payment mechanism.
As transactions costs are volatile like the token value itself, it works only well to some degree when the gas prices are low. We still have the minimum fee and the L2 solutions because on L1 it does not really work as well as originally intended.
Which as well could and should be done with a stablecoin.
Which would not be required if Storj would send a stablecoin or other form of stable payout instead of a volatile token.
What the current STORJ price? $0.11 when it was at $0.20 or $0.16 a month ago?
How does it make sense for Storj to buy tokens at $0.20 and send them to SNOs with a value of $0.11?
And if you don’t sell it immediately, the risk of further massive loss is on the SNO which is not fair at all as it is the payout for the service the SNO has fully provided the previous month. The SNO should not be forced to sell immediately hoping that there is no crash of prices.
So altogether as I keep saying: The system was great when buying back token was not required and Storj did not really have the money to pay the SNOs.
But as of today when Storj needs to pay USD to buy tokens to send them to the SNOs which sell them on volatile markets (for USD), this whole concept does not make much sense anymore and has completely obsoleted itself in my opinion.
That’s an issue with the choice of network, not the token. They could be sending USDT/USDC as payouts on the same ETH network… and transaction costs would be volatile… and there would be minimum fees… and L2 options to try to avoid those fees.
When Storj can afford it, they definately could start using stablecoins. They wouldn’t switch immediately: because there are a lot of STORJ tokens out there and people would scream if their value went to zero overnight. But SNOs can already swap their payouts to stablecoins if they’re concerned about token values… so it I don’t know if I’d say they should do it. If SNOs want to hodl stables… they’re already hodling stables
SNOs can always do what they want. Hodl. Sell. Burn. Whatever. After being told for years that STORJ isn’t a token they should expect to increase in value… they could still hodl it. I think selling is a better option (or like you’ve mentioned: swapping to a stablecoin).
Storj still does not really have the money to pay the SNOs. They hope 2026 will be the year they really have the money to pay the SNOs. Until then: they’re relying on the remaining treasury tokens (while they ramp up monthly token buys - because eventually they’ll need to buy at least 100%).
As of today Storj isn’t buying all the tokens needed to send to SNOs (just a small amount): they aren’t profitable yet: they can’t afford to do so. So still using treasury tokens for now does make much sense.
I hope they become profitable soon. And I’d be fine with stablecoin payouts one day. But if they’re telling the community they can’t afford it today… and they’re looking for ways to sustain the value of the STORJ tokens they still have in their back pocket: I understand those ideas as business decisions.
We do not discuss a change of the payout method in this topic, we also do not discuss switching to other chains; no FIAT, no stablecoins as a payout method in a feasible future.
Please, do not suggest these options in every topic where you could, it change nothing.
Here we discussing options for usage of STORJ tokens only, thank you.
SEC → Classification as a means of payment/security