De-Crypto-ing Signals in Initial Coin Offerings: Evidence of Rational Token Retention
利用首次代币发行市场，研究发现创业者通过保留更多代币来缓解信息不对称，保留比例越高，融资越成功且更可能开发出产品，尤其在市场拥挤时信号更强。
Using the market for initial coin offerings (ICOs) as a laboratory, we provide evidence that entrepreneurs use retention to alleviate information asymmetry. The underlying technology and the absence of regulation make the ICO market well suited to study this question empirically. Using a hand-collected data set, we show that ICO issuers that retain a larger fraction of their tokens are more successful in their funding efforts and are more likely to develop a working product. Moreover, we find that retention is a stronger signal when markets are crowded, and investors do not have as much time to conduct due diligence. This paper was accepted by Will Cong, Special Section of Management Science: Blockchains and Crypto Economics. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4631 .