And you don't need multiple levels. You can have one level. That's called affiliate marketing.
Loyalty points are a thing. You can earn them as an affiliate, for instance. It doesn't have to be a pyramid. But if you are going that route, almost all startups are "pyramid schemes" that end up with an IPO where the public continues to demand rents be extracted perpetually to boost stock price endlesssly, resulting in increased "enshittification". I'd rather people earn utility tokens they can spend once into the economy, than shares where they have the right to demand rent extraction and enshittification for everyone else.
In this case, this wouldn't even fit the mold for a multilevel marketing scheme, or even affiliate marketing. There are real cash flows detached from a buy-in both of those schemes.
>people earn utility tokens they can spend once into the economy, than shares where they have the right to demand rent extraction
Again, there's cash flows underlying shares of a company. There's not in the case of a digital asset that people refer to as a coin or token.
As far as shares, no. It's completely different. Shares are equity securities, that entitle people to dividends or they want the shares to go up in price. Regardless, it sets up a never-ending demand for enshittification and rent extraction that you see across Big Tech. Utility tokens are fundamentally different and don't have those perverse incentives, and remove the shareholder class. It's like comparing shares in Disney Corp, to Disney Dollars.
