Validation Rules

Proposed specification areas for ordering, supply and balance validation.

Open design

Validation rules decide which ELC-20 operations change state. They are the most consequential part of the standard: two indexers with different rules will report different balances from the same chain.

This page lists the proposed rules by specification area and marks every area that remains open.

Processing model

An indexer maintains a state for each ticker and processes every ELC-20 Sigil in canonical order. Each operation is either applied, changing state, or rejected, changing nothing. A rejected operation is still a valid Sigil; it is simply ineffective under the standard.

The outcome of each operation should be recorded with a reason, so that users and applications can see why an operation had no effect.

Canonical ordering

Rule	Status
Operations are ordered by block number, then transaction index, then intra-transaction index	Proposed
Only transactions with a successful receipt are considered	Proposed
Ordering is evaluated over finalized blocks only	Open

Elysium produces fast sequencer confirmations that precede settlement to HyperEVM. Whether indexers should report state at sequencer confirmation, at settlement or both is an open question with direct consequences for user experience and reorg risk.

Ticker rules

Rule	Status
Tickers are compared case-insensitively	Proposed
The first valid deploy of a ticker defines it; later deploys are rejected	Proposed
Allowed characters and length bounds	Open
Reserved or protected tickers	Open

Supply rules

Rule	Status
A mint for an undeployed ticker is rejected	Proposed
A mint with `amt` greater than `lim` is rejected	Proposed
A mint is rejected once total minted equals `max`	Proposed
A mint that would exceed `max` is truncated to the remaining supply, or rejected	Open

Balance rules

Rule	Status
A transfer with `amt` greater than the signer's balance is rejected	Proposed
Balances are computed in base units with arbitrary precision integers	Proposed
Transfers to the signer's own address	Open
Transfers to the zero address, and whether they constitute a burn	Open

Numeric rules

Rule	Status
Quantities must match the pattern of a positive decimal integer without leading zeros	Proposed
Any non-conforming quantity rejects the operation	Proposed
Upper bound on quantities, such as 2^256 - 1	Open

Reorganizations

Before a block is final, it can in principle be replaced. An indexer must be able to roll back state to a previous block and reapply operations. The rules above are defined over a single canonical history; how far an indexer must be prepared to roll back depends on the finality policy chosen above.

Test vectors

Before ELC-20 is considered stable, each rule will be accompanied by test vectors: an ordered list of Sigils with their expected outcomes and resulting balances. Two indexers are conforming only if they reproduce every vector exactly.

vector-001.json

Draft Example — Not Finalized

JSON

{
  "name": "mint beyond limit is rejected",
  "sigils": [
    { "from": "0xA", "body": { "op": "deploy", "tick": "demo", "max": "100", "lim": "10" } },
    { "from": "0xB", "body": { "op": "mint", "tick": "demo", "amt": "11" } },
    { "from": "0xB", "body": { "op": "mint", "tick": "demo", "amt": "10" } }
  ],
  "expect": {
    "outcomes": ["applied", "rejected:exceeds-limit", "applied"],
    "balances": { "0xB": "10" },
    "minted": "10"
  }
}