"Removing any governance powers from a token follows the model of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The token plays a utility role in the protocol but retains no governance power. There is no voting, no parameter management, no gatekeeping. Instead, the token functions to strengthen and grow the protocol." Interesting observation. I've taken governance tokens for granted but never noted that the two most successful crypto protocols don't use them. That makes me think - how many of these tokens have the governance baked in because their creators believe in democratic ownership, and how many do it just because they want to sell tokens without violating securities law? I can believe many people buy governance tokens because they think: "You can govern the protocol and not financial advice, but one day you might get % of the revenue generated by the app."
yeah I think it's pretty obvious that governance tokens are more of a loop hole than anything. I yet also have to witness a governance token that starts emitting dividends, which - isn't that yet another pretty tricky thing law wise? Although, I guess buybacks from the issuer could be the way there?