资源描述
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES
DECENTRALIZATION THROUGH TOKENIZATION
Michael Sockin
Wei Xiong
Working Paper 29720
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29720
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
February 2022
We thank Franklin Allen, Will Cong, Cam Harvey, Emiliano Pagnotta, Aleh Tsyvinski, Haoxiang
Zhu, and participants of various seminars and conferences for helpful comments. We are
particularly grateful to Bruno Biais, an Associate Editor, and three referees, whose highly
constructive suggestions helped shape this paper. The views expressed herein are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been
peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies
official NBER publications.
© 2022 by Michael Sockin and Wei Xiong. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to
exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit,
including © notice, is given to the source.
Decentralization Through Tokenization
Michael Sockin and Wei Xiong
NBER Working Paper No. 29720
February 2022
JEL No. G3
ABSTRACT
We examine decentralization of digital platforms through tokenization as an innovation to resolve
the conflict between platforms and users. By delegating control to users, tokenization through
utility tokens acts as a commitment device that prevents a platform from exploiting users. This
commitment comes at the cost of not having an owner with an equity stake who, in conventional
platforms, would subsidize participation to maximize the platform's network effect. This trade-off
makes utility tokens a more appealing funding scheme than equity for platforms with weak
fundamentals. The conflict reappears when non-users, such as token investors and validators,
participate on the platform.
Michael Sockin
Department of Finance
UT Austin McCombs School of Business
Austin, TX 78712
michael.sockin@mccombs.utexas.edu
Wei Xiong
Princeton University
Department of Economics
Bendheim Center for Finance
Princeton, NJ 08450
and NBER
wxiong@princeton.edu
The proliferation of the digital economy and the recent rise of the fintech industry have
led to two important trends. The first is that a sizable number of digital platforms have
funded their development and operations through the issuance of cryptocurrencies or to-
kens. According to Allen, Gu and Jagtiani (2020), for instance, as of May 2020, 4,136
cryptocurrencies exist, not including many that have failed. Although rampant speculation
and volatility are often observed in this asset class, its growing popularity raises important
conceptual questions about the benefits and costs associated with the tokenization process.
The second trend is the growing tension between digital platforms and their users as online
platforms, such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook, become increasingly pervasive in our
everyday lives. Their large networks of users not only facilitate monopoly power in pricing
but also extensive access to users’ private data. These privileges are subject to misuse, as
1
reflected by ongoing antitrust investigations into big-tech companies and the enactment of
data privacy regulations in the European Union, the United States, and Japan. Such conflict
between online platforms and their users represents a unique challenge to their design and
raises questions about whether they could be disintermediated to protect consumers.
The success of Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency to achieve unprecedented popularity
across the world, was built largely on the notion that delegating the issuance of the cryp-
tocurrency to pre-coded computer algorithms would free its users from potential abuses by
central bankers, who control the supply of traditional fiat currencies and may increase it
for their own interest at the expense of current holders. Since its inception, tokenization
has continued to facilitate the decentralization of digital platforms in practice, in what are
often referred to as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Filecoin, a platform
2
that enables users to exchange secure data storage services, for instance, is governed by the
Filecoin community who propose, discuss, and achieve consensus on Filecoin Improvement
Protocols (FIPs). Tezos, a platform that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions and smart con-
tracting, achieves governance through all users voting in two stages on updates proposed by
1There is extensive literature exploring how online platforms’ extensive access to user data may allow
them to price discriminate users, e.g., Taylor (2004), and ta
展开阅读全文
温馨提示:
金锄头文库所有资源均是用户自行上传分享,仅供网友学习交流,未经上传用户书面授权,请勿作他用。
相关搜索