Contract-State Accounting vs UTXO Tokens: Two Models for On-Chain Value

## INTRODUCTION Every blockchain application that handles value needs to answer the same question: how do you track who owns what? There are two dominant approaches, and choosing between them shapes your entire contract architecture. Contract-state accounting behaves like a bank ledger. A single smart contract holds a balance map, and transactions update entries in place. The UTXO model behaves like physical cash. Each unit of value exists as an independent object that gets consumed and recreate