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Add digital artifacts page to handbook (#1165)
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Digital Artifacts | ||
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Imagine a physical artifact. A rare coin, say, held safe for untold years in | ||
the dark, secret clutch of a Viking hoard, now dug from the earth by your | ||
grasping hands. It… | ||
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…has an owner. You. As long as you keep it safe, nobody can take it from you. | ||
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…is complete. It has no missing parts. | ||
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…can only be changed by you. If you were a trader, and you made your way to | ||
18th century China, none but you could stamp it with your chop-mark. | ||
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…can only be disposed of by you. The sale, trade, or gift is yours to make, | ||
to whomever you wish. | ||
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What are digital artifacts? Simply put, they are the digital equivalent of | ||
physical artifacts. | ||
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For a digital thing to be a digital artifact, it must be like that coin of | ||
yours: | ||
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- Digital artifacts can have owners. A number is not a digital artifact, | ||
because nobody can own it. | ||
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- Digital artifacts are complete. An NFT that points to off-chain content | ||
on IPFS or Arweave is incomplete, and thus not a digital artifacts. | ||
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- Digital artifacts are permissionless. An NFT which cannot be sold without | ||
paying a royalty is not permissionless, and thus not a digital artifact. | ||
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- Digital artifacts are uncensorable. Perhaps you can change a database entry | ||
on a centralized ledger today, but maybe not tomorrow, and thus one cannot be | ||
a digital artifact. | ||
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- Digital artifacts are immutable. An NFT with an upgrade key is not a digital | ||
artifact. | ||
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The definition of a digital artifact is intended to reflect what NFTs *should* | ||
be, sometimes are, and what inscriptions *always* are, by their very nature. |