NFT-Only Transactions No Longer Visible On-Chain: Critical Regression in Transaction Visibility

[tomachianura]

NFT-Only Transactions No Longer Visible On-Chain: Critical Regression in Transaction Visibility

Description

Issue Summary

After recent changes to the Hedera consensus mechanism, transactions that transfer only NFTs (with no HBAR or fungible tokens involved) have become invisible on-chain. Previously, these NFT-only transfers were properly recorded and visible, but now they seem to be filtered out or not properly recorded in the ledger's visible history.

Expected Behavior

All valid transactions processed by the network, including those exclusively transferring NFTs, should be visible and queryable on-chain, maintaining a complete and accurate record of asset transfers.

Actual Behavior

Transactions that exclusively transfer NFTs (without HBAR or fungible tokens) are not visible on-chain after processing, despite the transfers being completed successfully. Transactions involving fungible tokens or HBAR continue to display normally.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create two accounts with the necessary keys
2. Mint an NFT to the first account
3. Transfer the NFT from the first account to the second account without including any HBAR or fungible token transfers
4. Attempt to query the transaction or view it through explorers
5. Notice that the transaction is not visible in transaction history, despite the NFT having been transferred successfully

Impact

This regression has serious implications for:

1. Auditability: Complete transaction history is critical for compliance, auditing, and reconciliation purposes. The inability to track NFT-only transfers creates blind spots in audit trails.

2. Transparency: Users expect all transactions to be visible. This change violates the fundamental blockchain principle of transaction transparency.

3. Application Development: Many applications built on Hedera rely on transaction visibility for event tracking and business logic. These applications now have broken functionality.

4. User Trust: The discrepancy between successful transfers and visible history erodes user confidence in the reliability of the network.

5. Legal & Compliance: In regulated environments, complete transaction history is often a legal requirement. This change may introduce compliance issues for projects using Hedera.

Examples of Critical Use Cases Broken by This Change

1. NFT Marketplaces: Platforms that track ownership changes and provenance of NFTs can no longer reliably build history for assets.

2. Gaming Applications: Games using NFTs for in-game items that transfer assets between players now have broken transaction logs.

3. Supply Chain Tracking: Organizations using NFTs to track goods through a supply chain now have gaps in their visibility.

4. Event Ticketing: Systems using NFTs as tickets now have difficulty verifying transfer history.

5. Royalty Enforcement: Mechanisms tracking secondary sales of NFTs to enforce royalty payments are now compromised.

Important Notes

1. Undocumented Change: This significant behavioral change was not announced publicly and does not appear in any changelog or release notes, making it an unexpected breaking change for developers.

2. Backwards Compatibility: This change breaks backward compatibility for applications relying on NFT transaction visibility.

3. Core Functionality: Transaction visibility is a foundational expectation of distributed ledger technology, not an optional feature.

Request

We respectfully request:

1. Restoration of the previous behavior where NFT-only transactions are visible on-chain
2. If this change was intentional, a detailed explanation of the rationale behind the decision
3. An update to the official documentation and a proper changelog entry if this is intended behavior
4. If this is intended behavior, a migration path or alternative approach for applications that rely on NFT transfer visibility

Thank you for your attention to this critical issue.