The most interesting thing about the idea, to me, is the coupling of a token -- in the form of a crypto token -- to a shared endeavor, like one of the original joint stock companies. The token gets value by shared belief of those within the given network state, as a kind of localized money, an abstraction of the value redeemable in that community for services within and to that community, much like company script in the 19th century, or private money. George Selgin wrote a very interesting book about this latter.

It's hard to imagine a bitcoin version, since the vocal bitcoiners are so opposed to other kinds of tokenized money-like things. But you can nonetheless imagine a network state whose tokens exist alongside 'real' money (which is bitcoin, in this case) that serve as a bridge to the outside world. You can't just throw out the token and keep the rest of Balaji's idea -- the token, as an coordination construct that has power within the domain of the given network state -- plays a key role. You could think of it as a more active kind of equity, I suppose.