ERC-8378: Parametric Token

ERCs
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5

I think the Super-account behavior creates an important compatibility issue for ordinary ERC-20 wallets.

If balanceOf(account) returns 100, but only 20 is held in sub-account 0, a standard wallet may:

  • display 100 as available;

  • enable a “Max” transfer of 100;

  • estimate or simulate the transaction using normal ERC-20 assumptions;

  • then have transfer(..., 100) revert.

A warning in Security Considerations documents the issue for integrators, but it does not give wallets a reliable way to handle it.

Would it be useful for the standard to expose:

  1. A machine-readable way to detect whether an address is operating as a Super account.

  2. A canonical view returning the amount spendable through standard transfer().

  3. An explicit interface or capability signal indicating that balanceOf does not necessarily represent the standard-transfer balance.

Without something like this, wallets may need token-specific handling or repeated transaction simulation just to determine whether the displayed balance can actually be sent. That seems likely to produce confusing failures for users and compatibility problems for existing integrations.

Is preserving aggregate balanceOf a firm design requirement, or could the ERC expose a stronger compatibility guarantee for standard ERC-20 callers?

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