去中心化的加密货币设计（英）-73页

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIESDECENTRALIZATION THROUGH TOKENIZATIONMichael SockinWei XiongWorking Paper 29720http:/www.nber.org/papers/w29720NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH1050 Massachusetts AvenueCambridge, MA 02138February 2022We thank Franklin Allen, Will Cong, Cam Harvey, Emiliano Pagnotta, Aleh Tsyvinski, HaoxiangZhu, and participants of various seminars and conferences for helpful comments. We areparticularly grateful to Bruno Biais, an Associate Editor, and three referees, whose highlyconstructive suggestions helped shape this paper. The views expressed herein are those of theauthors 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 beenpeer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompaniesofficial NBER publications.© 2022 by Michael Sockin and Wei Xiong. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not toexceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit,including © notice, is given to the source. Decentralization Through TokenizationMichael Sockin and Wei XiongNBER Working Paper No. 29720February 2022JEL No. G3ABSTRACTWe examine decentralization of digital platforms through tokenization as an innovation to resolvethe conflict between platforms and users. By delegating control to users, tokenization throughutility tokens acts as a commitment device that prevents a platform from exploiting users. Thiscommitment comes at the cost of not having an owner with an equity stake who, in conventionalplatforms, would subsidize participation to maximize the platform's network effect. This trade-offmakes utility tokens a more appealing funding scheme than equity for platforms with weakfundamentals. The conflict reappears when non-users, such as token investors and validators,participate on the platform.Michael SockinDepartment of FinanceUT Austin McCombs School of BusinessAustin, TX 78712michael.sockinmccombs.utexas.eduWei XiongPrinceton UniversityDepartment of EconomicsBendheim Center for FinancePrinceton, NJ 08450and NBERwxiongprinceton.edu The proliferation of the digital economy and the recent rise of the ntech industry haveled to two important trends. The rst is that a sizable number of digital platforms havefunded 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, 4,136cryptocurrencies exist, not including many that have failed. Although rampant speculationand volatility are often observed in this asset class, its growing popularity raises importantconceptual questions about the benets and costs associated with the tokenization process.The second trend is the growing tension between digital platforms and their users as onlineplatforms, such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook, become increasingly pervasive in oureveryday lives. Their large networks of users not only facilitate monopoly power in pricingbut also extensive access to users private data. These privileges are subject to misuse, as1reected by ongoing antitrust investigations into big-tech companies and the enactment ofdata privacy regulations in the European Union, the United States, and Japan. Such conictbetween online platforms and their users represents a unique challenge to their design andraises questions about whether they could be disintermediated to protect consumers.The success of Bitcoin, the rst cryptocurrency to achieve unprecedented popularityacross 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 bycentral bankers, who control the supply of traditional at currencies and may increase itfor their own interest at the expense of current holders. Since its inception, tokenizationhas continued to facilitate the decentralization of digital platforms in practice, in what areoften referred to as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Filecoin, a platform2that enables users to exchange secure data storage services, for instance, is governed by theFilecoin community who propose, discuss, and achieve consensus on Filecoin ImprovementProtocols (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 by1There is extensive literature exploring how online platforms extensive access to user data may allowthem to price discriminate users, e.g., Taylor (2004), and ta