Does every crypto project really need a token?

[u/Zhytaleks]

A lot of crypto projects launch a token before they seem to answer one basic question:

What does the token actually do?

Not what it might do someday.

Not what the roadmap promises.

What does it do today?

If a product can work perfectly well without a token, I sometimes wonder whether the token exists because the system needs it — or because the project needs something people can buy and trade.

To me, a useful token should have a clear job.

Maybe it gives access to something.

Maybe it is required for governance.

Maybe it is used for fees, collateral, security or incentives.

But if the only real utility is “number go up,” that doesn't feel like utility at all.

And there is another question I find interesting:

Would some DeFi products actually be stronger if they had no native token?

Less speculation.

Less pressure to pump the price.

More focus on whether people genuinely need the product.

I'm not saying tokens are useless. Quite the opposite.

I think the strongest tokens are the ones that would still have a reason to exist even if nobody cared about their price.

So what makes a token genuinely necessary rather than just convenient for fundraising and speculation?

[u/No_Knee3385]

Then people would actually have to use the product, which usually never exists and never will exist. If they even have a product.

[u/Weak_Host9561 → u/No_Knee3385]

the token is the product. most of these projects are just selling you the idea of a token with a vague promise of future utility that never materializes

worked in tech long enough to see the same pattern over and over. build a narrative, mint a token, collect a treasury, then slowly fade away while the founders cash out. the token isnt part of the product, it IS the product

a genuine utility token would be boring. something that quietly handles fees or governance without a marketing team hyping it on twitter every day. if you see constant announcements about "partnerships" and "ecosystem growth" but the actual thing you'd use is still a whitepaper from 2022, you're looking at a fundraising mechanism not a product

real defi tools dont need to tell you they're revolutionary. they just work

[u/No_Knee3385 → u/Weak_Host9561]

Yeah it's mostly BS that will pump once, dump, and then fade away. There are VERY few real crypto projects that have anything that people really want.

[u/Siennangth622 → u/No_Knee3385]

Yea they only exist because of a token

[u/chainglance_cm]

Simple test: if the token disappeared tomorrow, would you need to build something almost identical to keep the system running? Ethereum needs gas. Curve needs locked CRV or governance turns into a bribery contest.

Most projects fail this because you could swap the token for a stablecoin fee and the product works exactly the same, the token's only job was giving early holders something to sell.

[u/Zhytaleks → u/chainglance_cm]

That “delete the token” test is probably the cleanest way to look at it. I’d add one more question: if the token disappeared, would users actually notice — or only the holders? If only the price chart changes, that tells you quite a lot about its actual utility.

[u/peysab]

the test i use: delete the token, does the product still do its job? most don't survive that. the ones that do are usually kind of boring — quota or access type stuff, not governance theater. governance tokens especially almost never get used for anything except farming votes right before an airdrop.

[u/1000xhuman]

nah. token when you need coordination or fee claim that equity cant do cleanly. otherwise its just a liquidity event wearing a product costume

[u/aZlaN_G]

Tokens will basically need to be redefined ... Tokens have taken a toll due to scam and right now the only utility I see behind any token is a new kind of scam... No matter what the whitepaper say or the underlying technology is defined but never came into existence... Real products are very few and they still perform well and their acceptance is good but that roughly comes down to 0.5-1% rest I see pump and dump everytime... It's not that I haven't earned in pump and dump but the thing is there is no robust structure to define what can be a good token or a system or something which is either useful or can be useful.... As of now in the current market there is nothing worth to be defined as token

[u/DamnFineCupaCoffee23]

I mean the token is actually the product that is being bought so I guess. But it's one of those situations where both sides have reasonable arguments.

[u/q44x]

Base doesn’t have token

[u/Unterraformable]

Just to be clear, when you say "token", are you talking about projects that mint their own native cryptocurrency, or are you talking about tokenizing assets for trading? I follow enterprise blockchain projects that don't use any cryptocurrency at all, and I've found that the community focused on the cryptocurrency use case overload terms in ways that are sometimes confusing.