Every state object carries an energy budget that decays exponentially, following a configurable half-life. When energy reaches zero, the object enters a 7-day grace period. If not refreshed, it evaporates: raw data is removed, a compact cryptographic proof is permanently preserved.

No. Evaporation removes raw data from the active ledger but preserves a ghost record. This is a cryptographic proof of what the data contained. Ghost records are permanent and independently verifiable.

Grace period: 7 days before evaporation. Resurrection window: 30 days after evaporation, during which the original owner can restore the data by paying a small energy fee.

State rent charges recurring fees. Miss a payment and your data is deleted. EvaporChain has no invoices. Energy decays passively. The only action is a refresh when you want to keep state alive.

Migrating signature schemes on a live chain is a consensus-breaking operation. EvaporChain uses ML-DSA (FIPS 204) from genesis. No migration will ever be needed.