brypto

"Governance" and "utility" aren't real token categories. What matters is their built in and inalienable (inherent) properties. You can't pray your token into being seen as a "store of value".

But you *can* create a decentralized network-marketplace with an integrated token that can be issued for incentives + capture fees for programmatic buybacks. This is a network token.

are there any success stories of creating a token first and then building a protocol around it? or is it just one of those crypto fantasies

Definitely, there are success stories! A notable example is ChainSafe Systems' Filecoin, which started as a token sale and then built a robust decentralized storage protocol. Similarly, Uniswap began with a governance token before expanding into a leading decentralized exchange protocol.