As a dev myself, it’s a pretty hard sell to get collaborators as it is. I can’t imagine that I’d be able to find ANY if I were to roll my entirely own cryptocurrency with fully realized tokenmonics on consensus algorithm on day one. Sounds like your idea couldn’t possibly be implemented in a staking context as well.
Do you know of any projects that did it this way (Bitcoin, IMO, doesn’t count since the devs DID end up taking a huge stake in it for themselves)