Open Crown Protocol

Open Crown is an open standard for registering and verifying ownership of cryptocurrency ticker symbols across multiple blockchains. Its on-chain registry uses cryptographic proof of ownership and soulbound NFTs called "Crowns" to create a trustless, cross-chain source of truth for who owns a given ticker.

Key Details

• Verified Ownership: Before claiming a Crown, token owners must provide cryptographic proof (deployer signature, mint authority, governance vote, or foundation attestation). Only verified owners can register. No first-come-first-served name grabs.

• Soulbound & Anti-Squatting: Crowns are non-transferable (ERC-5192), preventing ticker speculation. A heartbeat algorithm scores activity (0--100) based on volume, holders, and recency. Inactive registrations decay and become reclaimable.

• Multi-Chain Support: Open Crown uses CAIP-2 chain identification and currently supports Arbitrum, Ethereum, Base, Polygon, BSC, and Solana. Each chain has an independent deployment with no cross-chain messaging required. New chains are added via the OCP governance process.

• Protocol/Operator Separation: The on-chain protocol (verification, heartbeat, deals) is trustless and permissionless. Operators are independent services that index, serve, and curate Crown data, anyone can build one. If an operator goes down, on-chain registrations remain intact.

• Open Standard: Licensed under CC-BY-4.0, anyone can implement without restriction. Changes follow the OCP (Open Crown Proposal) process, inspired by EIPs and CAIPs.

• Structured Deals: While Crowns cannot be transferred, ownership changes happen through on-chain deals with a 7-day public announcement period, buyer-locked escrow, and capped facilitation fees (10% hard ceiling, marginal rate schedule).

How It Works

1. Prove ownership of your token contract on any supported chain
2. Claim your Crown: a soulbound NFT tied to your ticker, chain, and contract address
3. Maintain your heartbeat: active tokens stay registered, inactive ones decay
4. Link across chains: same wallet, same ticker, multiple chains share a unified profile

The Problem It Solves

When someone says "buy DOGE," there could be the original Dogecoin, dozens of tokens using the DOGE ticker on different chains, and scam tokens impersonating the real thing. Today, the answer to "who owns this ticker?" relies on centralized authorities (exchanges, listing sites), allows anyone to claim anything (wiki-style databases), or lacks cross-chain identity aggregation.

Open Crown replaces these with a single, verifiable, on-chain answer: the Crown holder proved ownership, and their registration is alive.

Read the Full Standard

For the complete specification, including entity definitions, verification methods, heartbeat algorithm, fee structure, deal mechanics, metadata schemas, and governance process, read the Open Crown Standard.