Authorization and authority are not the same thing. Most coordination systems treat them as inseparable.
Authorization is permission for a bounded action. Authority is what remains when that permission persists inside a system after the action it was meant to enable.
When you deposit funds onto an exchange, you authorize the exchange to act on your behalf. The exchange also retains the ability to act whether or not you want it to. The deposit is authorization. The retained ability is authority.
The same pattern appears everywhere coordination happens. Payment processors retain settlement authority. Platforms retain control over user actions. Protocols retain privileged state in smart contracts. The mechanism differs each time. The structure is the same: permission granted for a specific purpose becomes generalized control.
This is not a design flaw that can be patched. It is a consequence of the model. When coordination requires authorization to be held until conditions are satisfied, whoever holds it acquires authority as a structural side effect.
There is no widely used infrastructure for treating authorization as an independently portable artifact: something that can be published, propagated, verified, and consumed without becoming embedded inside a coordinating institution.
Existing approaches either hold permission explicitly with custody, accounts, and standing approvals or embed it structurally in smart contract state or protocol rules. In both cases, authority accumulates in the coordinating layer.
A participant publishes a signed Authorization Object describing exactly what action is permitted, under what conditions, within what time window, with what limits. It is explicit. It is bounded. It expires. A participant who changes their mind publishes a Revocation Object. No system holds the authorization on their behalf.
Execution occurs when an executor discovers that all required conditions have been satisfied. The executor does not receive special permission. They observe that permission already exists, verify it, and act on it.
The network does not decide who may act. It reveals when an action has already been authorized.
Custody becomes optional. Execution becomes competitive. Authority cannot accumulate structurally because no system retains permission beyond the action it was granted for.
Coordination still happens. Settlement still happens. The difference is that coordination no longer requires surrendering control to a coordinating institution.
Authorization is permission for a bounded action.
Authority is authorization retained by the system.
Coordination does not require authority to be structural.