Equitable Continuous Organizations with Self-Assessed Valuations

Abstract

Organizations are often unable to align the interests of all stakeholders with the financial success of the organization (e.g. due to regulation). However, continuous organizations (COs) introduce a paradigm shift. COs offer immediate liquidity, are permission-less and can align incentives. CO shares are issued continuously in the form of tokens via a smart contract on a blockchain. Token prices are designed to increase as more tokens are minted. When the share supply is low, near-zero prices make it advantageous to buy and hold tokens until interest in the CO increases, enabling a profitable sale. This attribute of COs, known as investment efficiency, is desirable. Yet, it can yield allocative inefficiency via the "holdout problem," i.e. latecomers may find a CO more valuable than early tokenholders, but be unable to attain the same token holdings due to inflated prices. With the aim of increasing overall equity, we introduce a voting mechanism into COs. We show this balances allocative and investment efficiency, and may dissuade speculative trading behaviors, thereby decreasing investment risk.