What is held?
Distinguish a pattern of information, a token, a contractual permission and a capability that a system recognises. A clear account of the object comes before a claim about its scarcity.
Digital Scarcity · A major research area
What does it mean
to give up a digital thing?
A file can be copied without leaving its sender. A transferable digital good raises a different question: can the recipient acquire effective control while the sender relinquishes the ability to exercise that same control?
This research area brings property theory, economics and security engineering together to examine possession, transfer and the institutions that make digital exchange credible.
01 / The research agenda
Control. Transfer.
Evidence. Accountability.
The object of study is a defined capability within a stated system and trust boundary. An attestation does not prove that every external copy of information has vanished.
This is a distinct research area from Teranode and transaction scaling. Its focus is the integrity and meaning of possession and transfer, and the economic and institutional conditions supporting them.
Explore research collaborationWhat changes hands?
Examine whether a transfer gives the recipient a determinate capability and extinguishes the sender’s competing control, with evidence beyond the sender’s own assertion.
What makes the promise credible?
Connect detection, containment, accountable attestation and incentives to the cost of enforcing possession. Identify who bears the risks that technical evidence cannot resolve.
02 / Research articles
From possession
to the point of use.
30 October 2026 · BSV · Decentralisation
When two BSV implementations disagree
A BRC-100 documentation correction, portable test cases and the responsibility to resolve disagreements at the layer that actually failed.
Read the decentralisation article29 October 2026 · Open standards · Bitcoin
A Standard Is an Invitation, Not a Throne
BRC-100, ElectrumSVP and SPV: shared foundations, different verification boundaries and the freedom to build competing applications.
Read the commentary29 October 2026 · Delegation · Commerce
The allowance behind a delegated key
A purchaser can retain authority while appointing a narrower user. This article connects restricted credentials, actor identity and the shared allowance that delegated work consumes.
Read the delegation and allowance article22 October 2026 · Recovery · Commerce
The past that a backup brings back
An authentic backup can revive obsolete authority. This article examines state continuity, fork detection and the cost of recovery that preserves the digital promise.
Read the recovery and state-continuity article19 October 2026 · Transparency · Commerce
The extra promise
Every entitlement can be authentic while too many claims compete for the same resource. This article examines auditable issuance, omitted obligations and the cost of making the supply promise credible.
Read the issuance and transparency article15 October 2026 · Privacy · Commerce
Private proof, scarce access
Blinded authorisation can separate eligibility from later use. This article examines the issuing rules, observable traces and institutional commitments needed to make limited access privacy-preserving.
Read the privacy and scarcity article12 October 2026 · Systems · Commerce
The second redemption
A genuine entitlement can reach two accepting services at once. This article connects current authority, coordinated consumption and recovery to the cost of honouring a scarce digital promise.
Read the redemption articleProperty · Institutions
What changes hands?
A transferable title can identify a defined power to obtain a service without claiming ownership of every copy of the information involved. This article examines the proposed right, notice and evidenced divestment.
Read the capability-title articleEconomics · Security
The price of digital possession
What does it cost to make a transfer divest its sender? This article connects accountable attestation, detection and containment to the incentives and residual risks behind exclusive effective control.
Read the enforcement-price article03 / Underlying research
The manuscripts
behind the questions.
These works are listed as research manuscripts. The articles explain their arguments and conditional models; the catalogue records retain their stated status.
September 2026 revision
Research manuscript
Divestment Without Deprivation: Bearer Titles to Capabilities and the Limits of the Scarcity Argument
Craig S. Wright. An institutional account of capability titles, notice and evidenced divestment.
View the manuscript record1 July 2026
Research manuscript
The Enforcement Price of Digital Possession: Threshold Attestation, Extinguishment, and the Economics of a New Property Object
Craig Wright. An analytical model of accountability, detection, containment and the cost of enforcing exclusive effective control.
View the manuscript record