Yes, they look like a bunch of circuit boards under X-Ray, it's pretty cool. We've travelled with "unloaded" Kong thus far (i.e. not backed by token). See section 4.1 on minting in the paper.
Even so, we're unaware of any value to the Kong token independent from Kong notes and we are not taking steps to list it on exchanges. If Kong was to become a means of exchange somewhere then it might need to be declared as a monetary instrument depending on the jurisdiction.
How do they hold up in a saltwater environment? My feitan/yubikey U2F physical tokens are developing rust/corrosion just being on my keychain and being thrown in a drawer on my boat for a couple hours at a time. I2C leads + saltwater environment seems like it may cause some problems.
I doubt this version would hold up well in a salt water environment. The chips will ultimately have a conformal coating leaving only gold contacts which should fare better.
We have considered more robust variants that would fully seal all the components, but this is a v2 problem.
I should add that even a corroded chip should ultimately still be accessible; you might have to pull it off of the bill and decap it.
The secure element chip is pretty robust on its own. Even if most of the bill is destroyed, it will be possible to communicate with the chip in most cases.
Even so, we're unaware of any value to the Kong token independent from Kong notes and we are not taking steps to list it on exchanges. If Kong was to become a means of exchange somewhere then it might need to be declared as a monetary instrument depending on the jurisdiction.