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Token-Based Platform Finance

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  • Lin William Cong
  • Ye Li
  • Neng Wang

Abstract

We develop a dynamic model of platform economy where tokens serve as a means of payments among platform users and are issued to finance investment in platform productivity. Tokens are optimally issued to reward platform owners when the productivity-normalized token supply is low and burnt to boost the franchise value when the productivity-normalized normalized supply is high. Although token price is determined in a liquid market, the platform’s financial constraint generates an endogenous token issuance cost, causing underinvestment through the conflict of interest between insiders (platform owners) and outsiders (users). Blockchain technology mitigates underinvestment by addressing the platform’s time-inconsistency problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Lin William Cong & Ye Li & Neng Wang, 2020. "Token-Based Platform Finance," NBER Working Papers 27810, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27810
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    1. Yuxuan Lu & Qian Qi & Xi Chen, 2023. "A Framework of Transaction Packaging in High-throughput Blockchains," Papers 2301.10944, arXiv.org.
    2. Aggelos Kiayias & Philip Lazos & Jan Christoph Schlegel, 2023. "Would Friedman Burn your Tokens?," Papers 2306.17025, arXiv.org.
    3. Agostino Capponi & Ruizhe Jia, 2021. "The Adoption of Blockchain-based Decentralized Exchanges," Papers 2103.08842, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    4. Ye Li & Simon Mayer & Simon Mayer, 2021. "Money Creation in Decentralized Finance: A Dynamic Model of Stablecoin and Crypto Shadow Banking," CESifo Working Paper Series 9260, CESifo.
    5. Michael Sockin & Wei Xiong, 2021. "A Model of Cryptocurrencies," Working Papers 2021-67, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    6. Lin William Cong & Yizhou Xiao, 2021. "Categories and Functions of Crypto-Tokens," Springer Books, in: Maurizio Pompella & Roman Matousek (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of FinTech and Blockchain, edition 1, chapter 0, pages 267-284, Springer.
    7. van Buggenum, Hugo & Gersbach, Hans & Zelzner, Sebastian, 2023. "Contagious Stablecoins," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277658, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Yousaf, Imran & Jareño, Francisco & Tolentino, Marta, 2023. "Connectedness between Defi assets and equity markets during COVID-19: A sector analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    9. van Buggenum, Hugo & Gersbach, Hans & Zelzner, Sebastian, 2024. "Contagious stablecoins?," CFS Working Paper Series 717, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    10. Arpaci, Ibrahim, 2023. "Predictors of financial sustainability for cryptocurrencies: An empirical study using a hybrid SEM-ANN approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    11. Makridis, Christos A. & Fröwis, Michael & Sridhar, Kiran & Böhme, Rainer, 2023. "The rise of decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges: Evaluating the role of airdrops and governance tokens," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Yousaf, Imran & Jareño, Francisco & Martínez-Serna, María-Isabel, 2023. "Extreme spillovers between insurance tokens and insurance stocks: Evidence from the quantile connectedness approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    13. Disli, Mustafa & Abd Rabbo, Fatima & Leneeuw, Thibault & Nagayev, Ruslan, 2022. "Cryptocurrency comovements and crypto exchange movement: The relocation of Binance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    14. Lennart Ante & Florian Fiedler & Fred Steinmetz & Ingo Fiedler, 2023. "Profiling Turkish Cryptocurrency Owners: Payment Users, Crypto Investors and Crypto Traders," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-13, April.
    15. Fink, Alexander A. & Klöckner, Maximilian & Räder, Tobias & Wagner, Stephan M., 2022. "Supply chain management accelerators: Types, objectives, and key design features," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    16. Cristian Frasser & Lucie Lebeau, 2023. "Complementary Currencies and Liquidity: The Case of Coca-Base Money," Working Papers 2307, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    17. Yousaf, Imran & Jareño, Francisco & Esparcia, Carlos, 2022. "Tail connectedness between lending/borrowing tokens and commercial bank stocks," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    18. Van de Vyver, Mark, 2023. "Token economics scoping review: Annotated bibliography," MPRA Paper 118476, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Andrea Canidio, 2023. "Auctions with Tokens: Monetary Policy as a Mechanism Design Choice," Papers 2301.13794, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    20. Kaur, Puneet & Talwar, Shalini & Islam, Nazrul & Salo, Jari & Dhir, Amandeep, 2022. "The effect of the valence of forgiveness to service recovery strategies and service outcomes in food delivery apps," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 142-157.
    21. Shah, Anand, 2022. "Valuation of Loyalty Tokens," MPRA Paper 111986, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Gryglewicz, Sebastian & Mayer, Simon & Morellec, Erwan, 2021. "Optimal financing with tokens," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1038-1067.
    23. Shen, Zhuyi & Wang, Shibo & Yang, Jinqiang, 2023. "A note on the dynamic adoption and valuation theory in tokenomics," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    24. Shen, Zhuyi & Wang, Shibo & Yang, Jinqiang, 2023. "Robust adoption and valuation in tokenomics," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    25. Talwar, Shalini & Dhir, Amandeep & Scuotto, Veronica & Kaur, Puneet, 2021. "Barriers and paradoxical recommendation behaviour in online to offline (O2O) services. A convergent mixed-method study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 25-39.

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    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

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