What do you mean by "how much the platform itself is worth"?
Is that in a hypothetical world where the governance token doesn't exist?
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Uni, for example. Last I checked, the token is used for governance but there is no financial incentive for owning it like there would be in an equity (no right to revenue or assets, this may have changed).
We can value uniswap like a company, judged by revenue, PE multiplier...
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what if, hypothetically speaking, UNI holders were to vote to take all (currently non-existent) revenue on Uniswap and pay it out as airdrops on UNI holders?
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That's the crux of the question I suppose. Because the governance without revenue seems like it should be worth less than the platform, but if the governance has the right to do this, it should be worth more. At what point does that scale tip?
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Because then it seems to me that owning a large bag of uni, in this example, is disproportionately worth more than the sum of the uni held
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Explain that point? As in you think it's worth more than its current market cap, or that having a lot is good b/c you have power?
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Seems like there is almost a separate value based on how much someone owns of the governance token. 1 uni might entitle me to a portion of revenue, if decided, but as a governance mechanism isn't worth too much. A majority share on the other hand, is worth much more
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...than the sum of tokens held, because that majority share now has control. That value is accrued to the majority share, whether between a single entity or multiple, and detracted from smaller holders
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Similar to the approach you took with Serum vs Megaserum in a way
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Ah yeah ok that makes sense.
So basically I think UNI is worth about the same as Uniswap, because:
1) governance is broken
2) you'll never get close to a majority
3) it'll get all the fees
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But that's specific to Uniswap and it could be different in other cases