Great questions!

As you point out, launching a token isn't difficult (in fact I don't know why more people don't do it on Steem). The hard parts are retrofitting the blockchain to accept new decentralized tokens and developing the necessary code that enables people to customize the Proof-of-Brain distributions to ideally fit their business logic. That is far more complicated than simply launching a token protocol. It's what we believe people really need and that is what will differentiate SMTs from any other token launching protocol in existence (unless there is a whitepaper I am not aware of).

As far as creating one's own chain, token, and then being able to bootstrap the value of that token? If someone sends me a whitepaper and team roster I can evaluate the likelihood they will be able to execute. But based on my current read of the blockchain landscape this is beyond unlikely. If an established player were to announce a competing protocol (for tokens that are distributed by the crowd) and release a whitepaper or repo, that would be a different story, but if they were to do so my assumption would be that they would be starting about a year behind us, meaning we would likely have a year or two to establish market dominance. To be clear, a dumb token is not money. It will not and cannot function as money which effectively makes it useless by my estimation. Yes these tokens can provide value to an enterprise, for example by serving as IOUs for a future SMT, but aside from that, they're junk. IMO.

We are developing SMTs with an eye toward ensuring they can add value to as diverse a set of industry players as possible, from the small yoga blogger to the fortune 500 company.