This article explains how NFT ownership on the Stellar blockchain can be proven even in an apocalyptic scenario where services like IPFS, Stellar, and marketplaces are down. It relies on best practices from SEP-0039, using cryptographic CIDs for art and metadata, transaction reconstruction from genesis, and Ed25519 signatures. Basic math and offline computation suffice to verify ownership irrefutably.
The article uses a doomsday scenario 100 years after purchasing an RC Evres 01 NFT on Litemint to demonstrate resilient NFT ownership on Stellar. Following minting guidelines that became SEP-0039, art and metadata are stored decentrally with circular blockchain references via CIDs, computable offline using SHA-256 hashes. Ownership verification involves calculating the CID to match the Stellar asset's data entry, reconstructing historical transactions from the genesis ledger to find the owner's public key, and proving control with an Ed25519 signature. Even with terabytes of data, this process assumes Stellar's historical consensus availability. The method ensures 'irrefutable' proof, barring cryptographic breakthroughs like solving the discrete logarithm problem.
