TechFlow news, Li Jin, partner at Variant, wrote in a newly published article titled Progressive Ownership: A Model for Application Tokens that the founding principle behind Variant was the belief that the next generation of the internet would transform users into owners through tokenization.
Infrastructure networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum have successfully used tokens as a model for user incentives. However, the application layer has yet to find a mature model for using tokens to grow networks.
On the contrary, numerous examples show that distributing tokens has actually hindered sustainable growth and user retention, attracting more speculators than genuine users, thereby obscuring product-market fit.
Due to these failures, many believe that applying tokens to applications is a category error—but we disagree.
Instead, we believe the solution lies in continuously iterating token design toward more bottom-up, opt-in ownership distribution models, which we call "progressive ownership." This approach focuses on deepening loyalty among users of an application (once product-market fit is achieved).
