Protocol Overview

Fabrica is built on the principle that property ownership should be as direct and self-sovereign as holding any other digital asset. The protocol creates a binding connection between onchain tokens and real-world property rights, with no intermediary standing between the token holder and their property. The connection is legal, not nominal: transferring the token to a new owner is intended to operate as a conveyance of the underlying property. First American has underwritten title insurance on a property that went through the Fabrica trust, validating the chain of title the structure produces (see Title insurance after tokenization). The California Board of Equalization has stated that "a transfer of the Fabrica Token is a transfer of the underlying real property itself."

Fabrica is a full system, not a single smart contract. The legal trust, the regulatory licenses, the validation and confidence-scoring services, the lending and oracle integrations, the valuation pipeline, and the county recording infrastructure compose into one protocol that has operated in production through the full property lifecycle, including loans originated, repaid, and defaulted through to recovery.

The protocol is asset-class-agnostic. The trust, token, and validation model apply to any deeded real property; nothing in the architecture is land-specific. Land is the current focus because it is the most underserved and least encumbered real property. Land is the last major asset class not yet onchain. Treasuries are tokenized. Gold is tokenized. Land is next.

Core Design Principles

Truly Non-Custodial

The Fabrica Trust is designed with no corporate intermediary:

• No Company in the Trust: Fabrica as a company has no role in the trust structure. The trust exists solely between the property, the trustee (often the owner themselves), and the token holder.
• Direct Control: Token holders have full, unmediated control over their property. There is no entity that can block, delay, or interfere with ownership rights.
• No Custodianship: Fabrica never holds, controls, or has access to user assets. Property tokens are always in the owner's account.

Permissionless

Anyone can interact with the protocol without requiring approval:

• Open Smart Contracts: The token contracts implement standard interfaces (ERC-1155, ERC-7496, ERC-7572) and can be accessed by any compatible application.
• Permissionless Transfers: Property tokens can be transferred, sold, or used as collateral without requiring Fabrica's involvement.
• Open Source Legal Instruments: The trust agreement is open source under CC0-1.0, available for anyone to review, use, or adapt.

Resilient by Design

The protocol is designed to function independently of Fabrica's existence:

• Walk-Away Test: Every token holder can control and operate their property through their token, regardless of whether Fabrica continues to exist as a company.
• Direct Contract Interaction: Users can interact directly with the smart contracts via Etherscan or any Web3 interface.
• Emergency Redemption: Token holders can burn their tokens and work with any lawyer to transfer title out of the trust,no Fabrica involvement required.
• Token Recovery: Even if wallet access is lost, the trust agreement provides a self-service recovery path that works through the county recording system,no blockchain access needed.
• Decentralized Storage: Property data is stored on IPFS, not on Fabrica servers.

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Architecture Overview

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What This Means for Users

For Property Owners:

• You have complete control over your property at all times
• No one can prevent you from transferring, selling, or using your property as collateral
• Your ownership is secured by cryptographic keys, not by trusting a company
• Even if Fabrica ceased operations, your property rights remain intact and enforceable

For Developers and Operators:

• Build on standard, open interfaces without requiring Fabrica's permission
• Access property data from decentralized infrastructure
• Integrate with any ERC-1155 compatible protocol or marketplace
• Transfer property as a token transfer, in place of the per-transaction title work, escrow, recording, and settlement float of a traditional closing; the cost is similar whether one property or many are moved
• Draw loans against held property programmatically through the lending integration, priced off the public valuation feed, without a separate origination process per asset

For the Ecosystem:

• A true public good infrastructure for onchain real estate
• No single point of failure or central authority
• Composable with existing DeFi and NFT infrastructure
• Land as collateral across DeFi,the missing RWA primitive

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Technical Standards

The protocol implements widely-adopted standards for maximum compatibility: