ERC-7972: RWA Compliance Router for Blockchain Identity and Modular Real-World Asset Compliance

ERCs
1

Discussion topic for ERC-7972, RWA’s: RWA compliance router for RWA’s(security tokens) · Add ERC: Universal Compliance Router for RWA's by deepanshu179 · Pull Request #1087 · ethereum/ERCs · GitHub

Summary:
The RWA Compliance Router (ERC-7972) is a smart contract middleware that enables modular compliance for tokenized Real-World Assets (RWAs). It integrates seamlessly with:

  • DIDs (Decentralized Identifiers) for universal identity resolution
  • OnchainID for verified, on-chain identity and compliance metadata
  • Soulbound Tokens (SBTs) to represent non-transferable credentials like KYC, accreditation, or residency
  • On-chain compliance modules (e.g., KYC/AML, investor limits, blacklists)

Motivation:

On-chain compliance for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) such as money market funds, real estate, private equity, and fixed-income securities etc. is becoming essential as adoption increases. Regulatory frameworks (KYC, AML, accredited investor rules, jurisdiction-specific rules) are often complex, evolving, and differ across asset classes and countries.

Currently, developers hardcode compliance logic into token contracts or wrap tokens with enforcement proxies. These approaches are:

  • Inflexible: They require contract redeployments to update rules.
  • Siloed: Each protocol creates and audits its own compliance logic.
  • Non-composable: Tokens, marketplaces, and identity services cannot easily interoperate.

This results in duplicated effort, increased audit surface, and fragmentation across ecosystems.

We need a shared, modular, and extensible compliance layer that:

  • Allows for dynamic updates to compliance rules
  • Enables jurisdiction-specific enforcement logic
  • Promotes reuse and composability across protocols
  • Encourages collaboration between identity providers, compliance services, and token issuers

The RWAComplianceRouter addresses these needs by serving as a pluggable registry and execution layer for compliance modules that can be applied across different asset types, jurisdictions, and lifecycle events.

Rationale:

The RWAComplianceRouter is designed with the following decisions:

  • Modular Contract Registration: Compliance contracts are registered with their corresponding function selectors (bytes4) to allow for diverse validation logic without assuming fixed interfaces. This allows backwards-compatible upgrades and supports heterogeneous compliance frameworks.

  • Staticcall: Compliance checks are invoked via staticcall, ensuring they are read-only and cannot modify state. This makes the router safe to integrate with other on-chain systems and supports off-chain simulation for auditability.

  • Dual Registry Design: The router maintains separate lists for:

    • General compliance contracts: which apply globally,
    • Jurisdiction-aware contracts: which are checked conditionally based on the user’s jurisdiction (passed as a bytes32 identifier).
      Note: The router interface can extended to perform additional checks not limited to just above checks.

    This split improves clarity and allows different enforcement strategies to coexist.

  • Iterative Check Model: The router returns true on the first passing check. This conservative model optimizes for gas efficiency while enabling compliance layering.

  • Owner-controlled Registration: To avoid misuse, only the deployer (or designated admin) can register or remove compliance modules. This can later be extended to role-based or DAO-based control models.

This architecture provides a low-coupling, high-composability mechanism for evolving compliance logic that can serve as shared infrastructure for the RWA ecosystem.

Update Log

  • 2025-06-16: review
  • 2025-06-16: ERC-7972 under review

External Reviews

2 as of 2025-07-21

Outstanding Issues

None as of 2025-06-16.

2

Universal compliance proxy (1)
Universal compliance proxy (1)749×637 69.2 KB

3

Interface

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.20;
/// @title IUniversalComplianceRouter
/// @notice Interface for a modular compliance router supporting general and jurisdiction-aware compliance contracts
interface IUniversalComplianceRouter {
    /// @notice Registers a general compliance contract
    /// @param contractAddress The address of the compliance contract
    /// @param selector The function selector (e.g., isCompliant(address))
    function registerGeneralComplianceContract(address contractAddress, bytes4 selector) external;
    /// @notice Removes a compliance contract from the registry
    /// @param contractAddress The address of the contract to remove
    function removeComplianceContract(address contractAddress) external;
    /// @notice Checks if a user is compliant with any general compliance contract
    /// @param user The address of the user to check
    /// @return True if compliant with any general contract, false otherwise
    function isCompliant(address user) external view returns (bool);
    /// @notice Checks if a user is compliant with any jurisdiction-aware compliance contract
    /// @param user The address of the user
    /// @param jurisdiction The jurisdiction identifier (e.g., country code)
    /// @return True if compliant with any jurisdiction-aware contract, false otherwise
    function isCompliant(address user, bytes32 jurisdiction) external view returns (bool);
}