Bind to law: Soulbound tokens and property law

Soulbound tokens (SBTs) are a novel type of crypto-token. They are not intended to be treated as liquid, transferable items, but instead as verifiable and non-alienable repositories of provenance-secure information related to specific people. SBTs are intended to be non-transferable – but because of the technological medium within which they are created, they are generally transferable as a matter of fact. This article considers whether it is justifiable to treat this type of token as an object of property rights. It suggests that property law could help to achieve what technical design alone cannot – the non-transferability of SBTs. While the ability to transfer the token might remain as a matter of fact, SBTs might achieve non-transferability as a matter of law, through the application of property law concepts such as relativity of title and the bona fide purchaser rule.