Decentralized Platforms: Governance, Tokenomics, and ICO Design
研究了传统平台（如亚马逊）的佣金合约与去中心化平台（如Uniswap）的代币保留机制如何缓解市场失灵、激励长期建设，发现代币保留虽降低创始人利润但提升服务水平，两者结合仅在有限情况下增值。
Traditional two-sided platforms (e.g., Amazon, Uber) rely primarily on commission contracts to generate revenues and fuel growth, whereas their decentralized counterparts (e.g., Uniswap, Filecoin) often forego these in favor of token retention. What economics underpin this choice? We show that with properly designed initial coin offerings (ICOs), both mechanisms can independently alleviate market failures at the initial fundraising stage and incentivize long-term platform building. However, they achieve this in different ways. Although commission contracts often lead to higher profits for founders, token retention leads to higher service levels, benefiting the users and service providers. In essence, token retention surrenders a fraction of earnings to better align with the tenets of decentralized governance. Combining both mechanisms can add value, but only in relatively limited cases. These findings offer guidance and a possible rationale for why platforms may want to favor one mechanism over the other or use both. This paper was accepted by Will Cong, Special Section of Management Science: Blockchains and Crypto Economics. Funding: This work is funded by the Mack Institute at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.02076 .