Zhu Weisha | January 10, 2026
In Comparison of Three Attributes Between Antiques and Listed Companies (Part One), we explored the treatment of antiques on-chain as both a commodity and a bond in the context of financialization: regarding the commodity attribute, we analogized the similarity between fractional antique trading and corporate mergers and acquisitions; regarding the bond attribute, we borrowed from the dividend logic of utility stocks, utilizing the natural appreciation of antiques to achieve “income generation.” Beyond these two attributes, the third key attribute is “stock.”
The “stock” attribute of antiques is more complex than both the commodity and “bond” attributes. A major antique itself is like a mature enterprise, its value not inferior to that of a listed company. From the perspective of consensus expansion, antiques also possess the potential for significant price appreciation. The stock market, as a highly mature market, has underlying assets—enterprises—that share consistent attributes with antiques. Therefore, for antique financialization to succeed, it must draw lessons from the stock market to avoid detours. The stock market is the ideal model for antique financialization.
I. Factors Influencing Stock Prices
The long-term value of a stock depends on the company’s fundamentals (such as profitability, cash flow, competitive advantages, governance level, etc.), while speculative activities (short-term volatility, emotional trading, leverage tools, etc.) significantly influence long-term pricing through various mechanisms. Short-term prices are driven by market sentiment, while long-term prices reflect the intrinsic value of the enterprise. Emotional value often breeds speculative value—speculation is not entirely negative; it can provide liquidity, accelerate information transmission, but may also amplify volatility, create pricing mismatches, and even lead to resource misallocation. In the continuous game of the market, prices gradually converge toward the intrinsic value of the enterprise, forming a long-term equilibrium curve. It must be emphasized that changes in the enterprise itself and its external environment affect its long-term value; therefore, the intrinsic value of an enterprise is not static. This dynamic nature is precisely the reason speculation exists and is the core of the price discovery mechanism, reflecting the high-risk, high-return characteristic and appeal of the stock market.
Apart from the macro environment (such as economic cycles, inflation, interest rate changes, geopolitical events, etc.), the main factors affecting stock prices are as follows:
1. Minority Capital Dominates Pricing: Data from 2025 shows that the average daily turnover rate in the US stock market is approximately 3.5%–4.8%, 0.64% in Hong Kong, and 1.52% in mainland China (sources: HKEX, SSE, and related market reports). The lower the trading activity, the easier it is for a small amount of capital to leverage a larger price increase.
2. Institution-Dominated Pricing: The pricing power of institutions stems from a combination of capital scale, information advantage, trading tools, algorithmic execution, and market influence (including guiding public opinion), not from a single method. Institutions do not simply “manipulate” the market; rather, through “scale effects + professional capability + long-term strategy,” they become the de facto price setters and directional leaders of the market, which is also an important foundation for market stability. Markets without professional institutions often exhibit “pump-and-dump” chaos, as seen in the cryptocurrency market. Since the vast majority of tokens reflect only emotional value without intrinsic value support, prices tend to collapse when narratives fail. Simply using an antique to back a token is not genuine antique financialization and is insufficient for success. An antique financialization scheme must be comparable to a stock IPO. Satoshi Nakamoto essentially established a system of machine trust, while market trust for antiques must first stem from institutional recognition.
3. Futures-Guided Pricing: The futures market prices and trades future risks through an open, efficient, leveraged mechanism. This enables risk hedging for real enterprises but may amplify risks in financial markets. In markets with imperfect rules like cryptocurrency, futures further exacerbate risks.
4. Market Maker Pricing: Market makers continuously provide two-way quotes (bid/ask), ensuring there is always a counterparty in the market, thereby improving trading efficiency and reducing transaction costs.
5. Prevailing View Pricing: The automated market maker (AMM) mechanism in DeFi (Decentralized Finance) exemplifies this point. Additionally, different markets have different dominant forces and may assign different valuations to the same asset. The greater the institutional differences, the larger the arbitrage space tends to be. This reflects the impact of global market interconnectedness.
6. Wash Trading Pricing: Such behavior constitutes market manipulation, which is illegal in stock markets but relatively common in cryptocurrency markets. Without wash trading, emotionally driven assets like Meme coins would struggle to survive, as manipulators use it to incite market sentiment.
7. Spot-Futures Linkage: The linkage mechanism between futures and spot markets is neutral in itself but greatly amplifies human weaknesses and information/capital asymmetry, often to the detriment of retail investors. Of course, long-short mechanisms are also important balancing tools for the market.
8. High-Frequency/Algorithmic Trading: Short-term price fluctuations are increasingly dominated by algorithmic trading, which exploits microsecond-level speed to capture opportunities, further enhancing market efficiency.
9. Passive Index Funds: These funds completely track and trade index components, influencing overall capital flows. With the rise of products like ETFs, such funds have become a significant force in market pricing.
10. Leader Pricing: The market often uses the most representative and strongest asset in a particular sector as a valuation anchor, basing the pricing of similar assets on it.
11. Comparable Pricing Effect: Acting as a “magnifying glass” and “emotional engine” for prices, price movements in a benchmark asset (such as a leading stock or a major futures contract) trigger linked valuation adjustments in similar assets. For example, a Bitcoin rise often drives Ethereum to follow, but this is essentially an emotional judgment easily exploited for profit-taking.
12. Herd Effect: The herd effect turns the market into an “emotion amplifier,” pushing small fluctuations into large bubbles. Institutions often proactively create and utilize the herd effect to guide liquidity. The comparable pricing effect and herd effect often reinforce each other: comparable pricing creates an “illusion of undervaluation” → triggers FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) → capital inflow drives up prices → ultimately leads to extreme volatility and repeated profit-taking. Its greatest risk lies in the “fallacy of composition”—individually seemingly rational follow-the-crowd behavior collectively leads to irrational systemic risk.
13. Social Media and Public Opinion Influence: In the digital age, viral spread on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit can amplify the herd effect and drive short-term speculation, as demonstrated by the GameStop retail vs. institution event.
14. Analyst Ratings and Reports: Analyst reports and rating adjustments (e.g., from “buy” to “sell”) from investment banks and research institutions can significantly impact market sentiment and stock prices, especially around earnings seasons.
15. Corporate Event-Driven: Sudden events such as quarterly earnings releases, merger announcements, stock buyback plans, or executive changes often trigger immediate price fluctuations.
16. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Ratings: Investor preference for sustainable enterprises drives valuation premiums or discounts for related stocks.
II. The Essential Simplification and Choices in Antique Token Pricing Mechanisms
Based on the above complex discussion of stock pricing, we reflect on antique tokens and find that their mechanisms are significantly simplified due to the different nature of the asset, as analyzed point by point below:
1. Antique Tokens Do Not Need Futures: The most significant characteristic of antiques is their lack of intrinsic change; there is no uncertainty regarding future operations or output, thus eliminating the need for futures for risk hedging. Bitcoin and gold require futures due to “mining” uncertainty; after Ethereum’s transition to PoS (Proof-of-Stake), block production uncertainty has been eliminated. Its futures primarily serve to enhance liquidity but in reality intensify speculation, favoring large capital over retail investors. In this recent adjustment, Ethereum has corrected from its peak of $4,956 to $2,623, marking a 47% decline. Bitcoin, in comparison, has fallen 32%, with the drop exceeding the scope of Comparable Pricing Effect. As a non-productive asset, an antique’s price is not determined by profit or cash flow but entirely by market demand. Understanding this is crucial. Futures were originally designed to hedge production risks of commodities. Introducing futures where no production risk exists amounts to institutional fraud.
2. No Need for Traditional Market Makers: If trading is implemented using the Automated Market Maker (AMM) mechanism from cryptocurrency DeFi (Distributed Finance), traditional market makers from the stock market are unnecessary.
3. Different Forms of Market ManipulationIn: the AMM mechanism, the main actors of manipulation are often hackers exploiting algorithmic vulnerabilities; in traditional markets like US stocks, manipulation (if it occurs) is primarily conducted by large financial institutions leveraging capital and information advantages. Manipulation in AMM tends to be fast, automated, and targeted at individual transactions or small liquidity pools; traditional market manipulation more often aims to influence long-term trends and broader investor sentiment. The Chainless Platform, based on a summary of blockchain deficiencies, has designed a new trading mechanism that avoids common AMM hacking tactics such as sandwich attacks, small pool manipulation, and MEV (Miner Extractable Value). It retains efficiency comparable to centralized trading while reducing manipulation risk. Please refer to the white paper on the Chainless website for details.
4. Fewer Pricing Mechanisms: In the AMM model, the following stock pricing mechanisms are weakened or eliminated: minority capital pricing, futures-guided pricing, market maker pricing, spot-futures linkage, and social media/public opinion influence.Currently not applicable in the AMM model: passive index funds, leader pricing.The Chainless Platform does not involve high-frequency/algorithmic trading, as eliminating MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) makes such trading inapplicable.
5. Wash Trading: While it exists in DeFi, it is not illegal, which is precisely the problem.
Analyst ratings and reports, corporate event-driven factors, social media influence, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) factors are weaker for antique tokens because antiques have no “corporate” dynamics. However, social media can amplify FOMO, ESG may involve cultural heritage preservation issues, and analyst reports can also focus on external topics.
6. Main Factors Affecting Antique Token Prices: The remaining factors are: institution-dominated pricing, prevailing view pricing, comparable pricing effect, herd effect, and wash trading. Here, the comparable pricing effect mainly refers to comparison with prices of similar antiques in traditional auction markets. Evidently, the antique trading market is a much simpler system than the stock market. If it still operates poorly, it is unreasonable. To become a market as large as the stock market, focusing on these few key factors will be highly effective.
III. Institutions Are the Lifeline of Antique Financialization
Many previous attempts at fractionalizing antiques have proven ineffective, even when the underlying items were genuine. Authenticity is the foundation, but compliance with financial market rules is more critical. Antique financialization requires the deep involvement of investment institutions—a point often overlooked by early issuers.
In antique projects, with only the aforementioned pricing factors remaining, institutions are not merely capital providers; they are also trust endorsers, pricing anchors, and triggers for the herd effect. Without the key element of “institution-dominated pricing,” the probability of success is almost zero. Without institutional recognition and sustained participation, projects lacking a “bellwether” will struggle to trigger the herd effect. Simultaneously, the comparable pricing effect dictates that institutions will only intervene when they obtain sufficiently low-cost coins , and the entire project design must be logical, profitable for all parties, and align with their existing stock investment cognitive framework.
IV. The Path to Breakthrough: Super IP + Institutions + Attention Lottery
Following the bursting of the NFT bubble in 2021–2022, the market in 2025–2026 has become extremely weary of “ordinary” tokenized antiques.To achieve a breakthrough, three conditions must be met simultaneously:
- Bind with an extremely scarce, top-tier narrative IP (world-class paintings/significant cultural relics).
- Secure the real financial backing and position-building from leading institutions.
- Create an extreme “attention lottery” effect through social media and prevailing views.
The greatest technical barrier for antique financialization remains “Authentication + Compensation Guarantee Mechanism“ (detailed in the previous article). Once the trust issue is resolved, antiques—as assets with “zero depreciation, zero production, no management required, and purely consensus-driven appreciation”—possess financialization potential far exceeding most people’s imagination. It could be the next true blue ocean.
All necessary tools are mature; success or failure now hinges solely on architectural design. The next article will focus on: how to construct a complete financial product framework that simultaneously satisfies institutional rationality and retail FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).
