Digital Property Rights and Platform Fairness in Contract-Constrained NFT Exchange Markets
Main article
Abstract
Non-fungible token (NFT) exchange markets increasingly trade assets that are not simply unique digital objects but bundles of platform-readable property rights, royalties, lockups, licences, staking conditions, and community access obligations. A platform that clears exchanges without recognizing these contractual restrictions may improve short-term liquidity while allowing users to shift burdens to counterparties, weaken creator revenue rights, and erode trust in digital ownership. This paper develops a mechanism-aware data management framework for contract-constrained NFT exchange markets. The framework treats each tradable NFT as a data object with an asset layer, a rights layer, a restriction layer, and a governance layer. It then maps platform fairness to three measurable requirements: property-right consistency, allocative transparency, and bounded procedural advantage. Building on matching theory, platform governance, blockchain information systems, and data quality research, the paper proposes an equal-restriction clearing architecture that separates market eligibility, preference submission, restriction normalization, fairness scoring, and atomic settlement. A reproducible simulation study compares unrestricted swaps, royalty-only filters, equal-term clearing, and fairness-aware clearing under varying lockup shares and royalty obligations. The results show that fairness-aware clearing modestly reduces raw trade volume but substantially improves rights consistency and reduces obligation leakage, particularly when contractual restrictions are heterogeneous. The paper contributes a practical design vocabulary for NFT platforms that need to balance liquidity, property-right enforcement, user fairness, and explainable governance in programmable digital asset markets.
