所代币代币_代币模型的最大问题：当权益窃取代币的价值时该怎么办

所代币代币

by Jose Maria Macedo

由Jose Maria Macedo

代币模型的最大问题：当权益窃取代币的价值时该怎么办 (The biggest problems with token models: what to do when equity is stealing the token’s value)

As part of the senior analyst team at AmaZix I spend a large part of my time reading through hundreds of projects’ whitepapers. I do in-depth due diligence to determine whether or not their tokens will be good investments. In doing this, one of the most important factors we look at is the project’s token economic model. This is to discern how much of the value created by the project is being captured by the token.

作为AmaZix的高级分析师团队的一部分，我花费了大量时间阅读数百个项目的白皮书。 我进行了深入的尽职调查，以确定其代币是否将是良好的投资。 为此，我们要考虑的最重要因素之一是项目的代币经济模型。 这是为了识别令牌捕获了项目创建的多少值。

This is extremely important. The value captured by a token is essentially its utility or intrinsic value. This ensures that the token’s price grows alongside adoption/success of the underlying project. A token lacking utility will see its price supported only by speculation. It is very likely to fail in the long-run. For more on this, see my earlier blog, in which I discussed the importance of token economic models in ensuring a token’s long-term value.

这是非常重要的。 令牌捕获的值本质上是其效用或内在值。 这确保了代币的价格随着基础项目的采用/成功而增长。 缺乏代币的公用事业将只能通过投机来支持其价格。 从长远来看，它很可能失败。 有关更多信息，请参阅我先前的博客 ，其中讨论了代币经济模型对确保代币长期价值的重要性。

In this blog and the next, I’ll discuss the two most common problems we see with token economic models. I will also explain why they matter and also some of the solutions we recommend to our clients.

在本博客和下一篇博客中，我将讨论代币经济模型中最常见的两个问题。 我还将解释它们为何如此重要，以及我们向客户推荐的一些解决方案。

什么是代币经济模型，为什么重要？ (What is a token economic model and why does it matter?)

If you’re a seasoned crypto investor or understand what a token economic model is, feel free to skip this part.

如果您是经验丰富的加密货币投资者或了解什么是代币经济模型，请随时跳过此部分。

Before we start talking about token economic models, it may be wise to start at the very beginning. What is a token and what makes up its value?

在我们开始讨论代币经济模型之前，从一开始就可能是明智的。 什么是代币，它的价值是什么？

A token is a crypto-economic unit of account that represents or interacts with an underlying value-generating asset. A token’s value is made up of its intrinsic value and its speculative value. The intrinsic value is the percentage of the token’s value that derives from demand for the underlying asset. The speculative value is the percentage of the value of the token that derives from demand due to an expectation of future price increases.

令牌是代表基础价值生成资产或与基础价值生成资产交互的加密经济单位。 代币的价值由其内在价值和投机价值组成。 内在价值是代币价值的百分比，其源于对基础资产的需求。 投机价值是指由于对未来价格上涨的预期而从需求中获得的代币价值的百分比。

While speculation is nice, it is hard to control/predict. It puts projects at the mercy of short-term-oriented investors, like our friend below:

尽管猜测很好，但很难控制/预测。 它将项目置于短期投资者的摆布之下，就像下面的朋友一样：

Rather than focus on speculative value, we recommend investors focus on intrinsic value. A token’s intrinsic value is dependent on two factors: the value created by the underlying asset and the percentage of this value which is captured by the token.

建议投资者不要关注投机价值，而应关注内在价值。 代币的内在价值取决于两个因素：基础资产创造的价值和该价值所占的百分比。

The token economic model is what determines the latter — how much of the value created by the platform is captured by the token. As such, it’s one of the primary determinants of a project’s utility value and long-term success.

令牌经济模型决定了令牌的经济模型-平台捕获的平台价值创造了多少。 因此，它是项目效用价值和长期成功的主要决定因素之一。

问题1：项目中的权益是从代币中“窃取”价值 (Problem 1: Projects where equity is “stealing” value from the token)

In my earlier blog, I suggested that there was an inverse relationship between the value of a project’s equity and the value of its token. They are effectively competing to capture the value created by the project.

在我以前的博客中，我建议项目权益的价值与其代币的价值之间存在反比关系。 他们正在有效地竞争以获取项目创造的价值。

This is because a company/protocol generates a fixed number of value/cashflows. This can be distributed to equity holders in the form of a dividend. It can also be distributed to token-holders in the form of a token burn/profit-share mechanism.

这是因为公司/协议生成固定数量的价值/现金流。 可以以股利的形式分配给股权持有人。 它也可以以令牌燃烧/利润分享机制的形式分发给令牌持有者。

As such, ignoring speculation, if a project’s equity is valuable, then it’s capturing value for shareholders at the expense of token-holders. If a project’s token is valuable, then it’s capturing value for token-holders at the expense of shareholders.

因此，忽略投机，如果一个项目的股权很有价值，那么它就以牺牲代币持有者的利益为股东获取价值。 如果项目的代币很有价值，那么它将为代币持有者带来价值，而却要以股东为代价。

Most of the biggest projects such as Bitcoin and Ethereum aren’t companies. They do not have shareholders. They only have token-holders instead. As such, there is no conflict of interest. Their token economic models seek to maximize value for token-holders.

比特币和以太坊等大多数最大的项目都不是公司。 他们没有股东。 他们只有代币持有者。 因此，没有利益冲突。 他们的代币经济模型试图使代币持有者的价值最大化。

However, this is not the case for many ICO’s which are limited companies, often with investors. They possess both shareholders (venture capitalists and founders) as well as token-holders (ICO investors and founders).

但是，对于许多ICO而言，情况并非如此，这些ICO是有限责任公司，通常有投资者参与。 他们既拥有股东(风险资本家和创始人)，也拥有代币持有者(ICO投资者和创始人)。

This creates a moral hazard. The founders of these projects will also possess both equity and tokens. They will often possess a higher percentage of the total equity than of total tokens. (A traditional seed round is 10–25% whereas an ICO is generally 40–60%).

这会造成道德风险。 这些项目的创始人还将拥有股权和代币。 他们通常会拥有比总代币更高的总权益百分比。 (传统的种子回合为10–25％，而ICO通常为40–60％)。

More importantly, founders have a legally enforceable fiduciary duty to their investors. They are obligated to act on behalf of their shareholders (read: maximize value for their shareholders) without a conflict of interest.

更重要的是，创始人对投资者负有法律上可执行的信托义务。 他们有义务代表股东行事(阅读：为股东创造最大价值)，而没有利益冲突。

Together, these factors create a perverse set of incentives. Founders are encouraged to prioritize the interests of shareholders over token-holders. They distribute the value created by their platforms to shareholders rather than token holders. (For an example of this, see my earlier piece on Ripple.)

这些因素共同构成了一组不正当的激励措施。 鼓励创始人优先考虑股东的利益，而不是代币持有人。 他们将其平台创造的价值分配给股东而不是代币持有者。 (有关此示例，请参阅我之前关于Ripple的文章。 )

This is a serious and overlooked issue, especially when ICO’s are making capital investments that benefit shareholders using the millions of dollars they raised in an ICO but then distributing the returns on those investments to shareholders rather than token-holders.

这是一个严重而被忽视的问题，尤其是当ICO进行资本投资，使他们利用在ICO中筹集的数百万美元使股东受益，然后将这些投资的收益分配给股东而不是代币持有者时。

The way this most commonly manifests is through projects charging their customers some kind of fee (either in FIAT or in the project’s native token). Then using the revenue generated by this fee “to pay for the maintenance of the project”.

这最常见的方式是通过项目向客户收取某种费用(以FIAT或项目的本机令牌形式)。 然后使用该费用产生的收入“支付项目维护费用”。

The word “maintenance” implies salaries and operational costs. There is nothing to prevent these fees being paid out as dividends to the company’s shareholders. (And the fact that investors continue to invest in blockchain companies’ equity indicates they believe these cash flows are or will eventually be paid out as dividends).

“维护”一词意味着薪金和运营成本。 没有什么可以阻止将这些费用作为股息分派给公司股东的。 (投资者继续投资于区块链公司的股权这一事实表明，他们相信这些现金流量已经或最终将作为股息支付)。

Another way in which this manifests is in companies using ICO proceeds to purchase cash flow generating assets which are however not legally owned by token-holders, leaving them with little downside protection.

另一种体现这种方式的方式是，使用ICO收益的公司购买了产生现金流量的资产，但这些资产不是令牌持有者合法拥有的，因此几乎没有下行保护。

For instance, most blockchain real-estate fund tokens use ICO proceeds to purchase real estate pay token-holders a given yield on these assets. Shockingly, this yield is generally comparable to the yield received on purchasing equity or bonds in similar publicly listed real estate funds. However, the yield on the token should actually be much higher than the yield on equity/bonds as token-holders, unlike equity and bond holders, have no downside protection.

例如，大多数区块链房地产基金代币使用ICO收益购买这些资产给定收益的房地产支付代币持有者。 令人震惊的是，这种收益率通常与购买类似的公开上市房地产基金的股票或债券所获得的收益率相当。 但是，令牌的收益率实际上应该比股票/债券的收益率高得多，因为令牌持有者与股票和债券持有者不同，没有下行保护。

Indeed, it’s worth remembering that these funds are legally owned by their shareholders. In many cases, these funds will also take on additional debt to finance purchases and will therefore also have obligations to bondholders. Thus, in a scenario in which these companies are facing bankruptcy and go into liquidation, bondholders and equity-holders will be paid first with token-holders either being paid last (in which case they will receive pennies on the dollar) or not being paid at all.

确实，值得记住的是，这些资金由其股东合法拥有。 在许多情况下，这些资金还将承担额外的债务以为购买提供资金，因此也对债券持有人承担义务。 因此，在这些公司面临破产并进行清算的情况下，将首先向债券持有人和股权持有人付款，而代币持有人则最后获得付款(在这种情况下，他们将获得美元的美分)或不付款完全没有

Many of these funds tout themselves as being “real estate backed”. But unless they are a structured security token offering which specifies the legal status of token-holders, investors in these funds’ token would be better off investing in real estate bonds or equities where they can enjoy similar upside with added downside protection.

其中许多基金自称为“房地产支持”。 但是，除非它们是一种结构化的证券代币产品，规定了代币持有者的法律地位，否则这些基金代币的投资者最好投资房地产债券或股票，在这些债券或股票中他们可以享受类似的上涨并具有进一步的下行保护。

This doesn’t only apply to real estate funds but also to cloud mining projects, projects developing commercial IP, and generally any projects using funds from an ICO to make capital investments into assets which will be legally owned by shareholders rather than token-holders.

这不仅适用于房地产基金，而且还适用于云采矿项目 ，开发商业IP的项目 ，通常还包括使用ICO资金将资本投资转换为将由股东而非令牌持有者合法拥有的资产的任何项目。

解决方案 (Solutions)

Solutions here all involve tweaking the token model such that value is transferred from the company’s equity to its token and aligning incentives between founders and token-holders. This can be done in several ways:

这里的解决方案都涉及调整代币模型，以使价值从公司的股权转移到代币，并在创始人和代币持有者之间调整激励机制。 这可以通过几种方式完成：

(1) Add a buy-and-burn or profit share mechanism

(1)添加买入或卖出或利润分享机制

Both of these involve giving the token a “yield” and transferring value from the equity to the token.

两者都涉及给代币“收益”并将价值从权益转移到代币。

In the case of the token “buy-and-burn”, this was initially suggested by Vitalik and has been widely adopted since. Basically, it involves designing token models with “buy-and-burn” mechanisms in which the project uses some or all of the cash flows generated by its platform to purchase its own tokens and destroy them. The decrease in supply raises the value of all remaining tokens by the percentage of total supply destroyed.

在代币“买卖”的情况下，这最初是Vitalik提出的，此后得到了广泛的采用。 基本上，它涉及使用“购买和刻录”机制设计令牌模型，其中项目使用其平台产生的部分或全部现金流购买其自己的令牌并销毁它们。 供应的减少使所有剩余代币的价值增加，占销毁总供应量的百分比。

Effectively, the project is distributing its cash flows to its token-holders, very similar to how an equity distributes cashflows to its stockholders through a dividend.

实际上，该项目正在将其现金流量分配给其代币持有者，这与股权通过股利向其股东分配现金流量的方式非常相似。

An example of this is Iconomi, a digital asset management platform which burns preset percentages of all fees collected and also produces quarterly reports outlining the number of tokens burned (crypto quarterly earnings reports).

例如，Iconomi是一个数字资产管理平台，它燃烧所有收取的费用的预设百分比，并且还生成季度报告，概述已燃烧的代币数量(加密的季度收益报告)。

A profit-share is very similar in spirit to the “buy-and-burn” in that it is providing the token with a yield and turning it into an asset that generates cash flows. This was initially suggested by Kyle Samani of Multicoin.

利润分享在本质上与“买入并烧钱”相似，因为它为代币提供了收益，并将其转化为可产生现金流量的资产。 最初由Multicoin的Kyle Samani提出 。

An example of this is Augur which pays REP holders for performing work for the network. REP tokens are like taxi medallions: you must pay for the right to work for the network. Specifically, REP holders must report event outcomes to resolve prediction markets.

一个例子就是Augur，它向REP持有人支付为网络工作的酬劳。 REP代币就像出租车的奖章：您必须为网络的使用权付费。 特别是，REP持有人必须报告事件结果以解决预测市场。

Ideally, token models should ensure that companies burn/profit share as high a percentage as possible of the cash flow they’re generating in fees in order to ensure the value they’re creating accrues to the token.

理想情况下，代币模型应确保公司燃烧/赢取的份额占费用产生的现金流量的尽可能高的百分比，以确保他们为代币创造的价值。

(2) Founders should be paid alongside token-holders

(2)创始人应与代币持有人一并支付

Projects raising money in ICO’s should not be paying dividends to shareholders, as this poses a significant conflict of interest.

在ICO中筹集资金的项目不应向股东派发股息，因为这构成了重大的利益冲突。

In an ideal scenario, founders of a crypto project should not receive salaries either but rather be paid through the yield generated by their token ownership.

在理想情况下，加密项目的创建者也不应获得薪水，而应通过其令牌所有权产生的收益来支付。

This is the case with Rialto, for instance, in which both team members and token-holders are paid through a bi-yearly dividend. While this is ideal as it maximally aligns incentives between founders and token-holders, it’s not always possible. Some crypto projects, like startups, will take time to reach profitability and the team must be able to survive in the meanwhile. In this case, transparency becomes paramount, which brings me to my next point.

例如，里亚托(Rialto)就是这种情况，团队成员和代币持有人都通过每两年一次的股息来支付。 尽管这是理想的选择，因为它可以最大程度地调整创始人和代币持有者之间的激励机制，但这并不总是可能的。 一些加密货币项目(如初创公司)将需要时间才能实现盈利，并且团队必须能够同时生存。 在这种情况下，透明度变得至关重要，这将我带到了下一个要点。

(3) Transparency

(3)透明性

Companies that raise money through ICO’s should be extremely transparent about all aspects of their project, including investors associated with the project, whether these investors received equity or tokens, how much they received, salaries they intend to pay themselves and any other operational costs they’ll be paying out.

通过ICO筹集资金的公司应该对项目的各个方面保持高度透明，包括与该项目相关的投资者，这些投资者是否收到股权或代币，他们收到了多少，他们打算自己支付的薪水以及其他任何运营成本，会付钱的。

For an example of this done well, check out page 26–30 of Essentia’s whitepaper. It’s worth remembering that all costs must be deducted from the cash flows generated by the platform in order to arrive at the value which actually accrues to the token. After all, cashflows going towards paying salaries/rent are cash flows that are not being distributed to token-holders through a token burn/profit share.

有关做得好的示例，请参阅Essentia白皮书的第26-30页。 值得记住的是，必须从平台产生的现金流中扣除所有成本，才能得出代币实际产生的价值。 毕竟，用于支付薪金/租金的现金流量是未通过令牌烧损/利润分配分配给令牌持有者的现金流量。

This information should be provided in the whitepaper (similar to the information a VC would expect in a seed/series A round) and should also be updated regularly once the ICO is completed.

该信息应在白皮书中提供(类似于VC在种子/ A轮融资中期望的信息)，并且在ICO完成后也应定期更新。

Hopefully, in the future, a standard will emerge for ICO’s, similar to the GAAP accounting standards for quarterly earnings reports that govern public companies. In them, ICO’s would be forced to update investors in a given format on key aspects of the project’s performance.

希望将来会出现ICO的标准，类似于管理上市公司的季度收益报告的GAAP会计标准。 在它们中，ICO将被迫以给定格式向投资者更新项目绩效的关键方面。

Until that time comes, we must self-regulate this by voting with our money and rewarding projects with better transparency with higher valuations. For an example of a project doing it right, check out Iconomi’s quarterly reports.

在此之前，我们必须通过用钱投票并以更高的透明度和更高的估值奖励项目来自我调节。 有关正确执行项目的示例，请查看Iconomi的季度报告 。

In the case of real estate funds and other security type offerings, these should be avoided unless they’re legally recognized security token offerings that clearly specify the token-holders’ legal status. This is particularly true in the case of bankruptcy or liquidation and as relates to other stakeholders such as bond and equity holders. Investors should also demand additional transparency from these types of projects, such as regular balance sheet updates.

对于房地产基金和其他证券类型的产品，应避免使用这些产品，除非它们是法律认可的证券令牌产品，并且明确规定了令牌持有者的法律地位。 在破产或清算的情况下尤其如此，这与债券和股权持有人等其他利益相关者有关。 投资者还应要求此类项目具有更高的透明度，例如定期更新资产负债表。

(4) Good governance models

(4)良好的治理模式

Many of these issues can also be resolved by having good governance models built into the token that allows token-holders to vote on key issues, including asset allocation.

这些问题中的许多问题也可以通过在令牌中内置良好的治理模型来解决，该模型允许令牌持有人对包括资产分配在内的关键问题进行投票。

For instance, a project’s assets can be held in escrow in a smart contract allowing token-holders to vote to liquidate and distribute all assets pro-rata to token-holders.

例如，项目资产可以通过智能合约托管在代管人手中，允许代币持有人投票清算并将所有资产按比例分配给代币持有人。

While this is currently impossible for assets other than cryptocurrencies, there are many projects working on registering and “tokenizing” real estate, gold, intellectual property and all sorts of other assets which will then be able to be placed into smart contracts.

尽管目前对于加密货币以外的其他资产来说这是不可能的，但是有许多项目正在对房地产 ， 黄金 ， 知识产权和各种其他资产进行注册和“标记化”，然后将这些资产放置到智能合约中。

结论 (Conclusion)

The token economic model design is an extremely important and underrated area for both investors and founders of cryptocurrency projects to think about. A project with a weak token economic model may see its token price fail, even as the project itself succeeds, simply because the token is not capturing any of the value created by the project.

对于投资者和加密货币项目的创始人而言，代币经济模型设计是一个极其重要且被低估的领域。 即使项目本身成功，但具有较弱的代币经济模型的项目可能会看到其代币价格失败，这仅仅是因为代币未捕获项目所创造的任何价值。

Stay tuned for my next blog where I’ll cover the other biggest problem with token models: high velocity.

请继续关注我的下一个博客，其中我将介绍令牌模型的另一个最大问题：高速。

If you’re interested in having your project’s token economics audited or discussing this further, feel free to get in touch with me through here or on Twitter.

如果您有兴趣对项目的代币经济学进行审核或进一步讨论，请随时通过此处或在Twitter上与我联系。

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-single-biggest-problem-with-token-models-part-i-8f9bcb3bab50/

所代币代币