去中心化的加密货币设计（英）-73页

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 They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.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