Equity

The value a name carries before it says anything. It is earned slowly, spent quickly, and never bought.

Equity is accumulated benefit of the doubt. It is why one name can launch an unproven thing and be trusted while another must explain itself line by line. The balance grows in small honest transactions and shrinks in single public failures, on an exchange rate that is brutally asymmetric.

Treating it as a balance changes behaviour: every shortcut is spending, every kept promise a deposit. Rebrands, extensions and price moves all draw on the account. The question before each is not, can we, but, is what we gain worth what this withdraws?