(a) The secondary market (stock markets, etc.) informs the prices in the primary market (stock issues, etc.). For example, when Facebook's IPO happens, its shares will be priced in part based on the stock prices of companies in related industries and in the broader market. Securities prices reflect not only the "intrinsic" value of the underlying enterprise/cashflow/whatever, but also complex second-order factors described by economic concepts like risk premia, liquidity, etc., that are predominately relational in nature.
(b) The primary market cannot exist without the secondary market because no one will buy into your IPO if they don't think they'll be able to turn around and sell the shares at some point. This is obviously the case for securities that generate no income (stocks that don't pay dividends, etc.), but it is also true of other securities for a slew reasons. This is the core of the the complex and amorphous notion of liquidity.
(c) By publicizing the value of the underlying assets, prices in the secondary market inform the wider world about the performance of the managers of those assets. Investors who believe those managers are doing a poor job can put up their money, throw the bums out, and bring in someone who will do the job properly.
All of these things support the efficient allocation of capital and ultimately shape the behavior of all economic actors. Capitalism requires that this mechanism works fairly well.
Don't get me wrong. I think stock market is a wonderful thing.
There are people that have money and people that need money and stock market is a great mechanism that tricks people who have money into parting with some of them temporarily or permanently and funding the people that need money.
Companies get money from selling their stock and use it to fund their actions.
People with money buy their stock and between themselves use their stock as casino tokens to legally gamble.
Without the gambling part there'd be much much less interest in giving money to the companies. People would have to believe that your company will grow. With stock market people just have to believe that there will be some suckers that will buy the stock for more money. (the thing you said in (b))
Most investors are in not to own a part of the great company but just for the gamble.
I just think that price of the token is mostly meaningless from the point of view of the companies that issued them. If you own 51% of the tokens you don't care how much people are pricing them because you own the actual company and you care mostly about the company itself. It's not like you could just dump your 51% on the market without making the sky fall.
Price has some importance if the company wants to get more money by issuing more tokens and it's also very important for various managers who got some of the tokens as their compensation. I'm not sure if that last one fact is a good thing. Managers should concentrate on their jobs of running the company not on making an impression that their company will do well in the future but you can't effectively ban them from playing. They would play anyway via proxies.
I believe that price of tokens does not say almost anything about companies condition. It only says things about random peoples opinion on the company future condition which I think correlates very weakly with actual current condition and the actual future condition.
Determining the price of token more precisely has no more value to people not involved in playing this game of buy/sell than precisely determining the value of WoW items.
Stock market gambling just switched from game played by people to game played also by bots. I think it's a nice thing that there's a place both for humans and bots in this game. I don't share the opinion that people that use bots are somehow cheaters. They just play they game the way they like and don't seem to be destroying it in the process.
(b) The primary market cannot exist without the secondary market because no one will buy into your IPO if they don't think they'll be able to turn around and sell the shares at some point. This is obviously the case for securities that generate no income (stocks that don't pay dividends, etc.), but it is also true of other securities for a slew reasons. This is the core of the the complex and amorphous notion of liquidity.
(c) By publicizing the value of the underlying assets, prices in the secondary market inform the wider world about the performance of the managers of those assets. Investors who believe those managers are doing a poor job can put up their money, throw the bums out, and bring in someone who will do the job properly.
All of these things support the efficient allocation of capital and ultimately shape the behavior of all economic actors. Capitalism requires that this mechanism works fairly well.