What is Provable Rarity?

 You may have seen me talking about #provablerarity, specifically #unaries. In order to understand the special nature of provable rarity, we first need to look at the way that the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) handles names.

The ENS system has 37 base characters.

10 numbers : 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

26 letters : a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

1 placeholder character : – (hyphen)

These are ASCII characters. Any character other than these is not a fundamental part of the system. You will notice that these symbols, whether they be letters, punctuation, emojis, etc, will always result in a yellow warning symbol when you register them or see them on a secondary marketplace.

Warning: non-ASCII character (em dash)

all good

Warning: non-ASCII character (club)

Configuration : (config) an allowable arrangement of the ENS base characters

Hyphen Restrictions

• Hyphen (-) can not occupy the first or last position of a name
• Double hyphen (- -) can not occupy position 3&4 of a name

allowed

malformed (- – in 3&4 position)

There is a set number of valid configurations and a set amount of names of each configuration.

Inherent Rarity: rarity related to inherent properties of the ENS system.

• countable traits with a set supply
• use base characters defined by the system
• non-reproducible fundamental characteristics
• related to the actual rarity of the configuration within all valid ASCII-only names
• does not consider shared meaning or demand of a particular name, just the number of names with a similar set of measurable traits.
• another type of provable rarity is related to original registration date. There is a set supply of names minted by a certain date, so this rarity is easily provable.
• inherent rarity is a constant. It can not be adjusted or expanded.

Constructed Rarity: rarity related to grouping made based on perceived characteristics. Based on a shared meaning, or a shared understanding that the group is special. An infinite number of sets of rarity can be constructed.

• All NFT projects rely on constructed rarity.
• They are reproducible, as we can see with all of the derivative clubs using Unicode symbols, like alternate number systems, flags, emojis, etc.

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• This does not mean that they can not be valuable, or that they are not good investments. I am just saying that it isn’t inherent rarity, and that their demand & value will be much more prone to volatility. They are similar to PFP NFT projects, so must be wary of the same types of risk… rugpulls, pump & dump, influencer abuse, etc.
  
  
  
  

  
  

  I believe that inherent rarity will be the metric used to separate the rarest collectible ENS names.

  These have a provable limited supply & will be the most resistant to hype, controversy and risk going forward. These should be the names that will hold the highest value. Forget utility, these are not the names that will be used as wallet addresses or domain names.

  These are rare collectibles, their scarcity set by the actual rules of the naming system, not an influencer, not a creator or founder.

  This is why I believe that they are special.