Author here. Agreed that overfunding of any kind can break feedback loops. When you have more money than signal, narrative fills the gap.

The structural difference with tokens is liquidity and breadth of exposure. In a VC-funded startup, equity is illiquid and held by a small number of employees and investors with board seats. There's still a corrective mechanism, even if it's slow.

With a token, the instrument is liquid and held by thousands of retail participants with no effective governance rights. Everyone (treasury, employees, community) shares a direct financial interest in maintaining the story, and there's no board meeting where someone says "the numbers don't work."