Before bed, I keep scrolling and—once again—they’re arguing about NFT royalties. Honestly, every time I see both sides hurl insults at each other, I feel really split. One side thinks it’s absolutely justified for creators to make a living on royalties. The other side also understands that when trading volume drops, everyone has to find ways to keep whatever they hold liquid and moving.

In the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking about the terms “data availability, ordering, and finality.” The more I think, the more it seems that data availability is like laying out the materials of a story so you can see them. Ordering determines who speaks first and how they speak. Finality is the feeling of things being settled—made definite, as if it’s officially on the record. It’s like when you were young and you’d gamble on the outcome with someone, and it’s also like watching stained glass paintings on a window gradually become vivid and transparent under the light. The harder the structure, the softer the story. Without finality, nobody in the market ever truly trusts anyone else, and liquidity is only ever a passing breeze.

The anti-royalties debate is the same. Once the underlying logic is sorted out, there’s room above it to talk about what’s fair and what isn’t. For now, that’s it.