Ownership is, at its core, an information system. The historical infrastructure for that information — registries, transfer agents, custodial chains — is being rebuilt on programmable rails. The consequence is not the abolition of those institutions but a sharp reduction in the operational cost of the system they collectively operate.

The categories where the change will be felt first are the ones where the historical infrastructure has been most expensive to maintain: cross-border private assets, fractional real estate, private credit and infrastructure equity. In each case, programmable ownership lowers the threshold at which participation becomes operationally viable.

The honest framing is not that digital ownership replaces traditional ownership. It is that it widens it — to more participants, across more jurisdictions, at a lower operational cost. Whether that widening is genuinely democratising will depend on the legal and behavioural design of the products that emerge. The infrastructure, at least, is finally there.