代币发行融资研究——基于企业生存时间的视角

The Study of Initial Coin Offerings:From the Perspective of Firm Lifespan

本文以中国境内所有的代币发行融资项目为研究对象,研究代币发行融资对初创企业生存时间的影响。研究发现,相比股权融资,代币发行融资会显著缩短初创企业的寿命。这一结论在增加控制变量和使用工具变量等方法后依然稳健。渠道检验的结果显示,代币发行融资阻碍了初创企业人力资本的进一步深化,从而缩短了企业的持续经营时间。从代币发行融资的宏观经济后果来看,代币发行融资所造成的不良影响恶化了地区的信用环境,从而显著提高了地区的融资成本。进一步研究表明,代币发行融资对初创企业的负面影响在信息披露水平较低、不受关注以及缺少媒体监督的样本中更加显著。本文揭示了代币发行融资带来的负面影响,为禁止代币发行融资等规范金融创新的政策提供了经验证据。

An initial coin offering(ICO) is a novel way for start-ups to fund projects by issuing blockchain-based tokens via the Internet. ICOs can provide an influx of external capital more quickly than traditional equity financing. By bringing more individual investors into funding start-ups, ICOs also change the funding landscape: previously, the equity financing market was ruled by institutional investors such as venture capital(VC)investors and private equity(PE) investors. ICOs are thus considered a revolution disrupting traditional sources of venture capital.Theoretically, the tokens issued by ICOs can be regarded as special securities that offer the right to receive income in the absence of voting power. Thus, ICOs may have diametrically opposed effects on firms. On the one hand, an ICO will increase the separation of ownership and control, which gives the actual controllers a tunneling incentive. Moreover, ICO investors cannot provide intensive monitoring services like venture capitalists, so opportunistic behaviors by management are loosely constrained. In addition, the large number of ICO investors scattered around the world are more likely to enjoy benefits as free riders rather than actively providing firms with better access to scarce resources;this would negatively affect the development of start-ups and significantly shorten their lifespan.ICOs also have advantages that help firms to increase their lifespan. First, an ICO is a fast track for raising money, so start-ups can quickly invest in valuable projects and seize market opportunities. Second, ICO investors can use the tokens to purchase start-ups’ future products and services;in this way, firms can establish their consumer base at an early stage. Third, because ICO issuers do not suffer from dilution, which reduces their control over the firm, they can engage in more independent, innovative decision making and pursue long-term strategies, instead of engaging in short-sighted behaviors under pressure from investors.Will ICOs shorten firms’ lifespans owing to poor corporate governance, or increase firms’ lifespans due to their advantages? To answer this question, we collect data on firms in China's Mainland that raised capital through ICOs from January 1, 2016, to June 30, 2018. We use propensity score matching to match each ICO firm with a VC-backed firm in the same industry and year, ensuring that they have similar ownership structures and sizes.Based on the matched sample, we find that ICOs significantly shorten the lifespans of start-ups compared with equity financing. The results remain robust after adding more control variables and after applying the impacts of the opening of treaty ports as an instrumental variable. Furthermore, the results indicate that ICOs shorten firm lifespan because they hinder firms from deepening their human capital. Regarding the macroeconomic consequences, the adverse impacts caused by ICOs have worsened the regional credit environment, which notably drives the increase in regional financing costs. Further research suggests a more significant negative effect of ICOs on start-ups with poorer information disclosure, less attention from government officials,and less media supervision. Our study offers important implications in two areas. First, because ICOs as an emerging financing method have significant adverse effects on firm lifespan, managers should weigh the pros and cons when adopting this method. Second, China’s ban on ICOs is suited to the current institutional environment. In countries with imperfect legal systems, a disruptive technology will have negative impacts if not properly applied. Thus, it is necessary for the government to regulate financial innovations given the institutional environment.Our paper makes three contributions to the literature. First, there has been little empirical research on the influence of ICOs on corporate financial behaviors. We collect data on all ICO projects in China's Mainland and are the first to reveal the adverse effects of this emerging financing method on firm lifespan, which supports the ban on ICOs by the People’s Bank of China and provides empirical evidence for the need to regulate financial innovations in China. Second, our paper contributes to the literature on corporate capital structure. Because firms in China's Mainland follow the "one-share-one-vote" principle, no research has examined the impacts of dual-class shares on Chinese start-ups. Using a novel sample of ICO firms, our paper studies how dual-class shares harm corporate governance mechanisms and the development of firms under imperfect legal systems. Third, our paper extends the literature on the lifespans of start-ups. This study not only addresses the gap in understanding firms’ financing methods and lifespans but also gives insights into the factors that influence the long-term development of start-ups.