[ajb]

The UK used to have a distributed system - everyone had to have a solicitor store "deeds" of their property, which were a sort of paper blockchain of all the transactions the land had been in since - I don't know, since records began I guess. Since we got a centralised land registry cheaper solicitors have binned these, but some properties still have them as a historical record.

[mr_toad]

> since records began I guess

Possibly since 1086

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book

[nutjob2]

Not sure what you mean by 'binned'. In some Common Law jurisdictions the deed document represents the property and whoever psychically holds of the deed controls the property. Any centralized recording system merely records the last known status of the deed and additional information such as the nominal owner, mortgage holders, etc.

[ajb]

In the UK, the old common law rule does not apply to land that has been registered centrally, that is then the legal definition of who owns the property. However there are still properties that are not registered and for those, the rule you describe is still applicable; the holder of the deeds is the owner.

Registration is now compulsory on sales, but that only came in in 1990.

As to what I mean by binned, I mean literally binned, thrown away.

[lbschenkel]

Not sure if by "centralised recording" you are referring to the UK way or how it is implemented in general (civil law) but I can say that in Brazil the registry definitely does not have only the last deed.

In Brazil the books are append-only, they have the whole history of thay piece of land since records began. If it was a bigger plot that was dismembered, it is there too. When ownership changes you have to register the contract/terms of transfer/sale separately in a different process, but that does not change legal ownership and you still must go to the registry and register that registered transfer/sale in the registry, and the paperwork you get is a new certificate of registration which is a new snapshot of the books and includes that whole history from the very beginning. There is no copy or certificate you can can get from the land registry without including that whole history.

[hinkley]

You’ll see this as a plot device in some Regency pieces. Someone gets ahold of the physical deed to a property and now there’s drama.

[ghaff]

There also used to be bearer bonds. In part because of concerns about money laundering, a lot of more or less untraceable large monetary instruments have gone away.

[hinkley]

Those started with money changers and long distance travel did they not?

Before phones, if you moved between two affluent areas there was enough surplus capital in both that instead of hauling a heavy chest of silver coins between them and risking getting Robin Hooded you turn your coins in at one end of the trip and get reimbursed by a fellow in the same money handling cooperative at the other end, and then they would square their books through traders moving money the opposite direction or if necessary by armed escort.

There are MMO economies that either ban the flow of real money into the game, or only allow it to enter the game and not leave. In the case of the latter, poorer players trade their time and skill for something transferable in the game, such as rare items, or in the case of Eve Online, one free month of play time. There are Eve players who only ever payed for the first couple months in the game and then found a revenue stream that was subsidized by other players buying excess play time and selling it in-game when the demand drives the price up high enough to be attractive.

[ghaff]

I don't really know the history but physical bonds and stock certificates were things within my lifetime. Safety deposit boxes for such were also a thing.I've never had one but my parents certainly did.