  Token curated registries (TCRs) have been proposed recently as an approach to
create and maintain high quality lists of resources or recommendations in a
decentralized manner. Applications range from maintaining registries of web
domains for advertising purposes (e.g., adChain) or restaurants, consumer
products, etc. The registry is maintained through a combination of candidate
applications requiring a token deposit, challenges based on token staking and
token-weighted votes with a redistribution of tokens occurring as a consequence
of the vote. We present a simplified mathematical model of a TCR and its
challenge and voting process analyze it from a game-theoretic perspective. We
derive some insights into conditions with respect to the quality of a candidate
under which challenges occur, and under which the outcome is reject or accept.
We also show that there are conditions under which the outcome may not be
entirely predictable in the sense that everyone voting for accept and everyone
voting for reject could both be Nash Equilibria outcomes. For such conditions,
we also explore when a particular strategy profile may be payoff dominant. We
identify ways in which our modeling can be extended and also some implications
of our model with respect to the composition of TCRs.
