Every collectible — physical or digital — reduces to two questions: is it real, and whose word stands behind that. This explainer gives you the working checklist; every registry profile on this site answers these same questions for the platforms it covers. The authentication stack (physical items) The custody question (the one buyers skip) For…
It’s not a hypothetical. Since 2024, a string of recognisable platforms have closed — and each shutdown answered the question “what did users actually own?” differently. The pattern in every case: the answer was determined by custody, not by the token. The record so far Platform Announced/closed What happened to user assets GameStop NFT marketplace…
On any vault-backed platform — Courtyard, Phygitals, Collector Crypt — every card arrives already inside a grading company’s slab. The platform is trusting that slab, which means you are trusting it. Here’s what the four names on the labels actually are. Grading is a two-part product: authentication (is the card real?) and condition grading (a…
“Custody” is the least glamorous and most important word in NFT collecting: it answers whose hands physically or technically control the thing you own. Our registry records a custody_model for every platform — this explainer defines what each model means for you in practice. The three models Model Who holds it Your exposure Registry examples…
Chain migrations are the quietest high-impact event in NFT collecting: the platform stays the same, but the ledger your ownership sits on — and often the custody mechanics, wallet requirements, and what the token can do — all change underneath you. Three recent documented cases make the pattern — and one important contrast — clear….
An NFT collectible is a digital item — a card, a moment, a piece of memorabilia — whose ownership is recorded on a blockchain (a shared public ledger) instead of inside one company’s private database. If you’ve collected graded cards or memorabilia, you already understand the idea; the difference is where the record of ownership…