Spending rights
What you actually hold, and what it lets you do.
A spending right is the thing you actually hold. It isn't tokens, and it isn't a claim on a specific slice of the reserve. It's permission to move a set amount out of the reserve, under conditions fixed in advance.
What a right carries
| Property | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| An amount | A ceiling. You can spend up to that much, not "whatever is in the reserve". |
| Conditions | The reserve's rules it was issued under, re-checked when you use it. |
| One use | It's consumed when you spend it, so the same permission can't be replayed. |
Why this beats holding a balance
Compare what an attacker gets in each case. That's the honest way to judge it.
The ceiling is the point. A wallet key has no upper bound on what it loses. A spending right has its limit written into it, so a stolen key costs you what was outstanding, not everything you have.
Someone who drains your wallet gets everything in it, instantly, and it's gone. Someone who compromises a NULL key gets your outstanding rights: capped at their amounts, still bound by the reserve's rules, and useless once spent.
It's not that nothing can go wrong. It's that the worst case has a number attached to it.
You still have a key
Yes, you still hold a key, and yes, losing it still hurts. You lose the ability to use rights you've been granted, which is a real loss and worth protecting against.
What you don't lose is a stored pile of money, because there isn't one behind the key.
One way to hold it: a wallet key opens a safe. A NULL key proves a permission. Protect both. Only one of them has a safe behind it.
Where rights come from
Rights are granted against a reserve, within the rules that reserve already enforces. You can't be granted a right the rules wouldn't allow. That's why the order in the lifecycle matters: rules first, rights inside them, and verification re-checks both when you spend.
Not decided yet. How you actually get a right: who grants it, what you have to show, what a right looks like on the wire, and whether rights expire. If you're building on this, it's the section you'll want first, and we know it.