ERC-1400

ERC-1400 is not a single standard but a family that bundles four child EIPs designed to interoperate. ERC-1410 splits each holder's balance into partitions (bytes32 labels such as locked, issued or class-A), so a single holder manages lock-ups and share classes within one contract. ERC-1594 requires validating every transfer before execution through canTransfer, which returns a status code and reverts the operation if it is not compliant. ERC-1643 handles on-chain documents (prospectuses, legal terms), and ERC-1644 introduces the controller role, letting an authorized entity force transfers or redemptions for court orders, key recovery or corporate actions.

It is one of the two historic security-token lineages, alongside ERC-3643. It lets issuers emit equity, debt, funds or financial RWA with compliance embedded in the token itself while keeping backward compatibility with ERC-20. The status matters: despite commercial adoption, ERC-1400 remains formally in Draft in the official EIP repository and never reached Final.

It was driven by Polymath, with Adam Dossa as the key author of the standard's founding article. In the EU, the ERC-1400 family covers tokenized securities that fall under financial-instrument regimes (such as MiFID II), not under MiCA, which excludes already-regulated instruments. Firms like Switzerland's Taurus document tokenized-securities deployments with ERC-1400, in addition to working with the local CMTAT standard.