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. Properties have been covered by title insurance after going through the Fabrica Trust structure, including a policy underwritten by First American (see Title insurance after tokenization). California State Board of Equalization Tax Counsel stated in a written informational analysis (2022) that "a transfer of the digital Token is, in substance, a transfer of the underlying real property itself"; that analysis is California-specific, for property-tax change-in-ownership purposes only, and not a legal ruling.

Fabrica is a full system, not a single smart contract. The legal trust, the regulatory licenses, the validation and Property checks 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: The token holder controls the property directly. There is no intermediary to go through and no permission to ask: not Fabrica's, not anyone's. Your rights come from the trust agreement, not from us, so they hold even if Fabrica disappeared.
• No Custodianship: Fabrica never holds or controls your property token. You hold it in your own wallet. When you put it to work (as loan collateral, for example), a contract holds it for that purpose and your ownership is unchanged; see Onchain for which holdings change ownership and which do not.

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: Your ownership, your trust and your recorded deed do not depend on Fabrica continuing to exist. The conveniences Fabrica runs (the website, the marketplace, borrowing through the DeFi lending pool, mail forwarding, valuation publishing) could stop; see What happens if Fabrica disappears.
• 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 mainly through the county recording system and needs no access to the lost wallet. It is not entirely offchain: the claimant must also send an onchain notice, a transaction "which may be originated from any Account" (Section 10.2.1).
• Decentralized Storage: Property data is stored on IPFS, not on Fabrica servers.

What depends on Fabrica

The walk-away test, part by part. "Without Fabrica" means Fabrica stops operating; it does not mean someone else takes control.

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Architecture Overview

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What This Means for Users

For Property Owners:

• You control your property through your token, with no company's permission needed
• You can transfer, sell, or use your property as collateral without asking Fabrica (the token contract's owner can pause it in an emergency; see Smart Contracts)
• 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, without a new deed, escrow, or recording for each trade (diligence, payment, tax reporting and service fees still apply)
• 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: