Author: @filber Translation: dedao leveraging grok
From late 2025 to early 2026, researchers, builders, and traders have been fiercely debating on Crypto Twitter (CT): Should protocols capture value through native tokens (with on-chain governance/utilities) or through equity structures (traditional dev companies/labs that hold IP, revenue streams, and off-chain assets)?
Pro-token advocates argue that tokens enable self-sovereign ownership, global liquidity, composability, and programmable incentives that equity can’t match.
Pro-equity advocates contend that tokens only bring hype, dilution, and governance fiascos, while equity offers stable income multiples and legal protections. A classic example is the recent fight over IP in Aave, and how Hyperliquid's $HYPE maintains ongoing utility through buybacks.
A pragmatic centrist view: the hybrid model is inevitable—tokens capture on-chain value, and equity handles off-chain execution. But what’s really missing? Effective tokenomics.
That's why I've been waving the flag for @risedotrich and its underlying Assured Value Machine (AVM). Most CT users haven't fully grasped what this is and how important it might be. I believe this could be one of the most crucial infrastructures to quietly land this cycle.
Let me break it down my way.
Most traditional token launches are still trash. Teams or VCs take massive allocations, promising vague 'governance + utility' that never materializes, and buyback mechanisms often just provide decent exit liquidity for insiders. When the protocol makes revenue, they buy back tokens, briefly pump the price, and then insiders dump. Token holders catch the bag while equity holders get real cash flow and control. No wonder so many smart folks say: maybe we should keep real value in traditional companies and stop pretending.
And RISE is trying something completely different. It's a permissionless launch platform built on Solana, based on Nirvana's AVM. Anyone can create a token, and it will automatically inherit mechanisms that can truly change the game.
Two core ideas that are simple yet powerful:
First: Each token has a real and continuously rising floor price backed by on-chain reserves. This isn’t some soft support that can be broken; it's a mathematically guaranteed minimum redemption value that can only go up, never down. When the protocol makes money—whether from transaction fees, product revenue, or otherwise—that money flows into the reserves and genuinely raises everyone's floor price. Buy pressure mints supply, and sell pressure burns supply. The design is very elegant.
Second: You can borrow against this floor price with zero interest and no liquidation risk. You don’t have to sell your tokens to realize value; just use SOL or any stablecoin to collateralize and borrow against the floor value. This way, you retain upside potential while gaining liquidity. It's like turning your tokens into genuinely useful collateral without facing the common stressors of DeFi.
Think about what old problems this solves:
No massive pre-mines for teams/VCs at launch; it’s designed to be fair.
Teams and creators no longer need to sell tokens to raise funds—they can directly borrow against the floor price.
Buybacks are no longer exit liquidity for insiders but genuinely push up the floor price and strengthen the whole system.
Utility is no longer a fake governance farce; value comes from real economic mechanisms: downside protection + perpetual borrowing liquidity + continuous income flowing into the floor price.
Imagine a DeFi protocol or application with real revenue: they can keep the off-chain parts (IP, company operations, business development) within a traditional equity structure while issuing native tokens through the AVM mechanism. Revenue split: part goes into the company's cash flow, and another part flows into the token reserve and boosts the floor price. Token holders can finally share in the protocol's upside in a mechanical way, without endless DAO voting.
This feels like the hybrid model we've been debating, but it's not just empty talk in threads and articles; it's actually realized at the token level.
Of course, it's still early days. RISE launched in April, and for now, it's mostly memes and small experiments. The floor mechanism needs real volume and sustained income to truly shine. Smart contract risks are still a concern for some.
But the design is really clean. It fundamentally eliminates the incentive problems that have made token economics a cancer in the past.
Most of CT is still asleep, treating RISE as just another meme launch platform, which will ultimately be overshadowed by Pump and others. I get it—this space is fast and noisy. But if more serious protocols start adopting AVM-style mechanisms to issue tokens, we might finally have a token version that can genuinely compete (or even surpass) traditional equity structures in terms of on-chain value capture.
This isn’t blind optimism about 'digital up,' but rather a fix for the fundamental incentive misalignments that have plagued the crypto industry for years.
If you're a builder frustrated with the old token launch model or an investor tired of watching value flow into off-chain equity, you should definitely check out RISE. Just launch a small project, stress test the floor mechanism, and experience the borrowing firsthand.
The debate between tokens and equity doesn’t have to stay theoretical forever. The right underlying primitives might make the answer obvious—I truly believe the RISE team has created that primitive.
Now the biggest question is: when will the big players in CT realize and admit this?
#RISE #Tokenomics