The question is then where do the funds for the liquid HIVE come from?

If it wouldn't be too much to check for, you could always make the community a paid community. Like 0.1 HBD pr month or something cheap, so you still get a good group of people into the community but also get some funds to get delegations or extra delegations.

There is always the dividend paying tokens you can go for. Its passive, but it takes a while though to get something meaningful.

Like your own DUO, but also DAB, EDSI, PANDA or PAKX :D

Or you can talk to community/token leaders about getting a token delegations from them and talk about burning 90% of what you get and sell the last 10% for extra hive to help fund the delegations.

You could ofc, also sell a token. But from what I have heard/seen then it takes alot of effort for it to not collaps in price, unless the project buys it back and sells it. You properly know more about having a token than I do :D