Data-Driven Mechanism Design for Contract-Constrained NFT Exchange Platforms
Main article
Abstract
Non-fungible token (NFT) platforms increasingly support assets whose transferability is shaped by vesting periods, staking commitments, royalty duties, access rights, and collection-specific transfer rules. These contractual features make NFT exchange more complex than simple peer-to-peer barter because an allocation that improves asset fit may still violate term consistency, expose users to hidden obligations, or reduce platform-level trust. This article develops a data-driven mechanism design framework for contract-constrained NFT exchange platforms. The framework integrates smart-contract metadata, wallet-level trading histories, inferred preference rankings, and transaction-risk indicators into a contract-aware matching process. Instead of treating NFTs only as indivisible goods, the study models each exchange option as a digital asset bundled with a transfer term. A data-driven equal-term top trading cycles mechanism is then proposed to balance allocative efficiency, individual rationality, term consistency, and manipulation resistance. Numerical experiments are conducted using a synthetic platform dataset calibrated to realistic NFT-market features, including heterogeneous user preferences, different shares of locked assets, royalty-bearing transfers, and varying degrees of preference noise. The results show that a standard top trading cycles rule generates high apparent efficiency but creates frequent term-consistency violations when restricted assets are common. A contract-filtered rule eliminates violations but loses welfare by blocking too many mutually beneficial exchanges. The proposed data-driven equal-term mechanism achieves the strongest overall platform score by combining constraint screening with preference learning and risk-sensitive tie breaking. The findings contribute to business data analytics, digital platform governance, and market design by showing how data infrastructure can translate programmable property rights into operational exchange rules.
