PortabilitySourced answer

Can users actually leave a wallet, app, or overlay?

“User-owned data is marketing if the user cannot export it, move wallets, replace a service, or keep using it when a provider disappears.”

The answer without the theater.

A user may control signing keys while still depending on one wallet database, hosted overlay, certificate issuer, lookup service, or application schema. BRC-100 and the overlay stack define useful interfaces, but each product must prove what is exportable, intelligible, restorable, and replaceable. The honest output is a layer-by-layer exit matrix and a tested migration.

The objection's strongest ground

  • BRC-100 defines an application/wallet interface, not a universal guarantee that every wallet store is mutually importable.
  • Overlay services can distribute application-specific state and discovery while leaving schema, hosting, and index dependencies.
  • On-chain records can remain publicly retrievable while application meaning or decryption depends on other data and keys.

Do not claim more than the evidence

  • This site has not independently validated a full migration across every wallet and service represented in the ecosystem.
  • Portability within BSV does not equal portability to another settlement rail.

A better next move than arguing

  1. Export keys, transaction history, baskets, labels, certificates, application records, and service configuration in documented formats.
  2. Restore into a clean environment or alternate implementation and reproduce a prior user action.
  3. Disable the original hosted dependency and observe which capabilities survive.

What would change this answer?

Routine, independently reproduced migrations would strengthen user-ownership claims. Proprietary stores, unavailable exports, or irreplaceable hosts would weaken them.

What the cited sources establish

Supported with an important qualification

BRC-100 defines wallet/application operations but not universal storage interchange among all implementations.

Specific export and storage behavior must be checked in each implementation.
Supported by the sources

The current stack exposes wallet and overlay implementations that can be inspected for dependency boundaries.

Read the underlying material

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