Provenance

An inscription can declare a parent. The declaration is only valid if the parent inscription is also spent in the same transaction, which means only the current owner of the parent can create children of it. That single rule is enough to prove authorship.

Making a child

1. Create the child inscription with a parent field naming the parent's id.
2. Include the parent's zat as an input to the same transaction.
3. Send the parent back to yourself in an output, so you keep it.

{
  "p": "zord",
  "parent": "9f2c…e10ai0",
  "content_type": "image/png",
  "meta": { "name": "Zcash Punk #128" }
}

What it is good for

Collections are the obvious use: mint one parent, then issue every item as a child, and anyone can verify membership by walking the chain. The same mechanism covers artist signatures, editions, and off-chain claims that need an on-chain anchor.