Gaming has long been a space where a sense of ownership is shared between the developers and players, whether that is as simple as a fanbase that becomes invested in a game’s plot and characters or as thoroughly enmeshed as a platform driven entirely by user-created games. And yet as this relationship has grown more sophisticated over the years, ultimately the users operate on good faith: developers can change anything at any time, and the users ultimately have only the power to spend money and time, or not. Independent databases maintained by both players and developers offer a new way to conceive of that relationship. They allow players to maintain control of the assets that they earn in game and to do with them what they wish. That might mean moving them elsewhere in the same ecosystem or trading them for tokens that can be used in other games. It means, inevitably, that the developer must give up a sense of agency and transfer some of that to players. It can be a scary prospect, but that’s what makes it exciting.