ERC-884

ERC-884 is a draft Ethereum standard, proposed in 2018, for issuing tokens that represent shares of stock in corporations incorporated in Delaware. It followed amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law that took effect in 2017 and allowed companies to keep their share registers on distributed ledgers. The proposal extends ERC-20 with features intended to meet the law's requirements: each token represents one whole share, every holder must be identified and verified before receiving shares, the contract keeps a list of current shareholders, and an administrator can cancel and reissue shares if a holder loses access to their keys. Personal details stay off-chain, with only a hash of verified identity data recorded. The idea anticipated later work on security tokens and tokenization of equity, but ERC-884 itself saw little adoption and has not progressed beyond draft status. Tokenized shares remain subject to securities regulation.