ERC-5313: Light Contract Ownership


  Ethereum Improvement Proposals
        
        
          
            
              
            
          
        

        AllCoreNetworkingInterfaceERCMetaInformational

      



      
        
  
    

  
    
    
    
    
    
      Standards Track: ERC
    
  
  
    
      ERC-5313: Light Contract Ownership
    
    
      
        
      
    
    
      
        
      
    
  

  An interface for identifying ownership of contracts

  	Authors	William Entriken (@fulldecent)
	Created	2022-07-22
	Requires	

  EIP-165, 

  EIP-173




  


  

  
    Table of Contents

    	Abstract
	Motivation
	Specification
	Rationale
	Backwards Compatibility
	Security Considerations
	Copyright



  


  
      
      
         Abstract
      
      
    


This specification defines the minimum interface required to identify an account that controls a contract.

  
    
      
      
         Motivation
      
      
    


This is a slimmed-down alternative to EIP-173.

  
    
      
      
         Specification
      
      
    


The key word “MUST” in this document is to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.


Every contract compliant with this EIP MUST implement the EIP5313 interface.


// SPDX-License-Identifier: CC0-1.0
pragma solidity ^0.8.15;

/// @title EIP-5313 Light Contract Ownership Standard
interface EIP5313 {
    /// @notice Get the address of the owner    
    /// @return The address of the owner
    function owner() view external returns(address);
}




  
    
      
      
         Rationale
      
      
    


Key factors influencing the standard:


	Minimize the number of functions in the interface
	Backwards compatibility with existing contracts



This standard can be (and has been) extended by other standards to add additional ownership functionality. The smaller scope of this specification allows more and more straightforward ownership implementations, see limitations explained in EIP-173 under “other schemes that were considered”.


Implementing EIP-165 could be a valuable addition to this interface specification. However, this EIP is being written to codify existing protocols that connect contracts (often NFTs), with third-party websites (often a well-known NFT marketplace).

  
    
      
      
         Backwards Compatibility
      
      
    


Every contract that implements EIP-173 already implements this specification.

  
    
      
      
         Security Considerations
      
      
    


Because this specification does not extend EIP-165, calling this EIP’s owner function cannot result in complete certainty that the result is indeed the owner. For example, another function with the same function signature may return some value that is then interpreted to be the true owner. If this EIP is used solely to identify if an account is the owner of a contract, then the impact of this risk is minimized. But if the interrogator is, for example, sending a valuable NFT to the identified owner of any contract on the network, then the risk is heightened.

  
    
      
      
         Copyright
      
      
    


Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.


  Citation

  Please cite this document as:

  
  William Entriken (@fulldecent), "ERC-5313: Light Contract Ownership," Ethereum Improvement Proposals, no. 5313, July 2022. [Online serial]. Available: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-5313.






      
    
  

  

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        Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) describe standards for the Ethereum platform, including core protocol specifications, client APIs, and contract standards.