Provenance & Authenticity — Who Holds It, Who Verified It, and How to Check
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)
- Grading — condition + authenticity assessment by a named company. For cards: PSA, BGS, CGC, SGC are the standard set. The slab carries a cert number you can verify on the grader’s own site — always do this.
- Memorabilia authentication — photo-matching, witnessed signings, auction-house records. Weaker and more variable than card grading; the authenticator’s name is the whole product.
- Chain of custody — who has held the item, documented. Auction records, vault intake logs, prior grading history.
The custody question (the one buyers skip)
For any platform holding physical items on your behalf, four facts should be publicly stated:
| Question | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| Where is the item? | Named vault, named country, third-party or in-house stated |
| Is it insured? | Explicit insurance statement (Courtyard, for example, states vault insurance publicly) |
| Can I redeem it? | A documented redemption process — cost, shipping scope (check Australia), timeframe |
| What if the platform dies? | Honest answer from the platform, or treat the risk as real |
If any row is unanswerable from the platform’s own documentation, that’s a finding — say so, or walk. Our registry records carry custody_model and redemption fields for exactly this reason — what each custody model means.
What a token adds (and doesn’t)
Adds: public ownership history, instant transfer without shipping, a tamper-evident record (Top Shot’s June 2026 move of Moment media to IPFS is the good version — the media itself is now verifiable independent of the company).
Doesn’t add: truth. A token certifies what it was told — it cannot verify that the slab in the vault is real, that the vault exists, or that redemption will be honoured. Those still rest on the operating company, which is why our registry tracks whether each platform is verifiably alive.
The checklist
- [ ] Named grader/authenticator, cert number checked on their official site
- [ ] Custody location and insurance stated in platform docs
- [ ] Redemption process documented — including whether it ships to you
- [ ] Platform status verified in the registry (dated evidence, not vibes)
- [ ] Chance-mechanics purchases (packs) understood as randomised
- [ ] No claim taken from marketing copy alone — official docs or it didn’t happen
Bottom line: provenance is people all the way down — graders, authenticators, vaults, platforms. The token records the chain; it doesn’t vouch for it. Verify each link, and check that the platform holding it all is still operating. Next: the verified platform registry.