> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://earthlinc.gitbook.io/protocol/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://earthlinc.gitbook.io/protocol/the-protocol/protocol-specification.md).

# Protocol specification

*v1.1 · July 2026 · YuCROWN Corporation · `earthlinc.eth`* *Outward-facing — for everyone who comes to use Earth LinC, or to build and collaborate on it. Derives from the Canon (`earth-linc-big-picture` v1.0); defines the protocol, independent of any single implementation.*

***

## What a protocol is

A protocol is a set of open rules and shared definitions that lets parties who neither know nor trust each other interact without passing through any central operator. It is the *grammar* of a behavior — HTTP is the grammar for *requesting a document*, and no browser owns it. Three properties separate a protocol from a product or a platform:

* **A standard, not an implementation.** Many surfaces can speak the same protocol; it belongs to none of them. HTTP is the protocol; Chrome and Safari are implementations.
* **Permissionless.** Anyone can implement it, build on it, or take part — without asking the originator. A platform is walls you enter; a protocol is something you bring your own things to.
* **It outlives any single company.** The rules are public and anyone can implement them, so the network survives the disappearance of any one operator. This is the real line between protocol and platform: on a platform the relationships and data belong to the operator; on a protocol each participant sovereignly owns their own side.

## Why Earth LinC is a protocol

Earth LinC began as a question, not a product: can a real good for this earth carry permanent, sovereign value of its own? Earth LinC is the open protocol that answers it in practice — the grammar for one behavior that had none before: *a real good for this earth, given permanent, sovereign form on-chain* — a station minted once, stars cast from it to people, real missions carried to the ground. What people do with the protocol is studied openly by C// (YuCROWN); the protocol itself belongs to no one.

It earns the name on all three counts:

* **Standard, not implementation** — the protocol *is* its objects (station, NaviStar, Realm, constellation), its acts (Broadcast · mint · Cast), its invariants (Part C), and its interfaces. `earthlinc.earth` is one implementation; anyone can build another surface that speaks it.
* **Permissionless** — it lives on a public chain under open standards (ERC-1155, ERC-721, ERC-6551), so anyone can mint, read a Realm, or build on it without YuCROWN's permission.
* **Outlives any company** — were every company building here to disappear, every minted station, every NaviStar, every Realm would remain on-chain, readable and buildable by anyone. The holder is sovereign over their own side; no operator owns the network. Companies run on it; no company owns it.

**One boundary, stated plainly.** A pure protocol is permissionless in every dimension. Earth LinC is permissionless everywhere it can be — minting, holding, transferring, reading, building — and anchored at exactly one point: before a real-world earth action is recorded, an independent, accountable source must confirm it happened, and YuCROWN anchors that verification and attests the missions. This step cannot be trustless, because the chain makes a record *permanent*, not *true*. So the protocol is open wherever openness is possible, and anchored only where physical truth requires an accountable source. Naming this boundary is what makes the protocol credible — not a vague claim to be "decentralized," but a clear map of where it is open and where it is anchored.

## Who this is for

This document is **outward-facing** — for everyone who comes to use Earth LinC, and everyone who comes to build or collaborate on it:

* **Use it** — open a station around your X; mint it to anchor it; Cast to connect; hold and govern your Realm.
* **Bring a mission** — nonprofits and collaborators whose verified earth action a mint can carry.
* **Build on it** — agents that extend the compose layer, and developers who mint and read its objects from their own surface.

On GitBook, the **protocol** and the **end-user product guide** are separate sections — this is the protocol. It defines what the protocol is, why it holds, and how to use it — not any one application.

***

## Part A · Understand it (enough to use it)

**Two structures, three acts.** You create a **station**; what's Cast to you lands in a **Realm**. Between them run three acts, in order — the first is free and open; the chain begins at the second; people are reached at the third.

* **Broadcast · give it form, share it open.** You bring an activity for this earth. AI gives it a living form: a **station**, composed by **NaviCanvas**, surfaced by **Navi**. You can **Broadcast** it — open, free, to anyone. This step is web2; nothing is on-chain yet. Everyone can play.
* **Mint · anchor it.** When you **mint** your station, it takes its permanent, on-chain form — anchored, sovereign, yours. At the mint you choose what it carries: carry a **mission** — a real action for this earth, attested by the anchor — and that payment is a **Drop**, the full amount to YuCROWN; mint it plain, and the mint is ordinary commerce. Either way the station is permanent; with a mission, it is also **grounded** — anchored to a real place on this earth.
* **Cast · connect.** From your minted station, you **Cast**: a **NaviStar** minted to a person you choose — an on-chain, two-way, permanent link. Their star, kept in their Realm. Cast again as the moment grows; every star from one station joins its **constellation**.

→ **The mint anchors; the Cast connects.** Two moments, in order: a station is minted **once**; stars travel from it **again and again**. Broadcast stays free and off-chain. Three different moves; they don't get flattened.

**The protocol's only acts are Broadcast, mint, and Cast.** No likes, no comments, no counts — to respond is to Cast back. Reactions live on social media, outside the protocol.

**+ Your Realm.** Each holder's sovereign on-chain space — your own sky. Every NaviStar cast to you collects here; a Realm is born the moment the first star is cast to you. Its living surface is the **Naviscape**; **Navi** surfaces it — and never generates verified fact.

**One primitive: `station(X)`.** X is whatever a station is opened around — an activity, an event, an organization's identity. The protocol does not enumerate or own kinds of X. *for Event / for Capital are not products — they are stations.* There is no product per kind of X; never a product matrix.

***

## Part B · Use it

### B1 · Bring an AI agent (extend the compose layer)

* **What you do:** offer a way to turn a human activity into a living *station* page.
* **What you get:** your capability becomes a way holders give their activity form, inside the protocol.
* **What you must respect — the integrity boundary (HARD):** an agent composes **authored, human-supplied expression** only. It may **never generate, alter, or assert verified ecological fact.** Navi *surfaces*; it does not *generate* verified fact. An agent that crosses this boundary is not conformant.
* **Acceptance:** **NaviCanvas accepts all agents** — no protocol-level gate (no allow-list, no stake). *Which* agents are invoked, and how, is an implementation choice — outside the protocol.
* **Interfaces:** compose via **NaviCanvas**, surface via **Navi**. (Exact API: the reference implementation.)

### B2 · Become a mission (carried at the mint) — for nonprofits / collaborators

* **What you do:** bring a real, verifiable earth action, backed by an independent accountable source.
* **What you get:** your action becomes something a mint can carry; mission-mint Drops fund it.
* **What you must respect — verification (HARD):** the chain makes a claim *permanent*, not *true*. Before any physical-world claim is recorded, an **independent, accountable source must confirm it**. No verification, no recording.
* **How a Drop routes:** a mint carrying a mission → **Drop** → **YuCROWN** (the anchor) → your mission. **The full amount; charitable only; one payment, one destination.**
* **Onboarding:** missions are **attested by the anchor (YuCROWN)**; how the anchor sources and vets them is its own implementation. Permissionless, open mission-onboarding is a future direction of the protocol.

### B3 · Open a station (around your X)

* **What you do:** open a station around anything — your activity, an event, an organization's identity — compose it (NaviCanvas), **Broadcast** it (off-chain, free) if you wish, **mint** it to anchor it on-chain (carrying a mission, or plain), then **Cast** NaviStars to the people you choose.
* **What you get:** a living page; a permanent, sovereign station of your own once minted; a constellation of NaviStars from everyone you Cast to; reach, if you Broadcast.
* **X = station.** The protocol is content-agnostic; what a station is about is yours.
* **Connecting an external verified identity / surface:** the external chain and Earth LinC merge through the **sovereign holder** — one holder, two chains, one Realm.
* **Realm existence:** your Realm is not pre-created — it is born the moment someone first Casts a star to you (Part A). Merging an external verified identity (a for-X surface) into a Realm is a **future** capability.

### B4 · Build on it (developers)

* **What you do:** mint and read the protocol's objects from your own surface.
* **Objects — two on-chain assets and the space that holds them:** the minted **station**; the **NaviStar** (ERC-1155); the **Realm** (Signet ERC-721 key → ERC-6551 account). → Part D.
* **What you must respect:** every invariant in Part C — custody, the integrity boundary, verified-before-recorded, one-payment-one-destination.
* **Defaults:** gasless (ERC-2771); custody-by-default with optional self-custody.
* **Interfaces:** **mint** (station — mission or plain; a mission mint routes its Drop and emits events) · **Cast** (NaviStar to a person) · read **station / NaviStar / Realm / Naviscape**. (Exact calls and ABIs: the reference implementation.)

***

## Part C · What you must honor (invariants — binding on every use)

Each binds any participant, agent, or builder. The *why* is part of the spec, because a builder who understands the reason won't route around it.

* **NaviStar is the holder's own — sovereign and transferable.** A **plain** edition may be moved, gifted, or passed on freely — including sold; how a holder disposes of what is theirs is their own affair. A **C// (grounded)** edition is the holder's to keep or gift: **marketplace transfers are blocked at the contract layer** — it is not designed to be sold. The protocol operates no marketplace and makes no claim of value or return. *Why: it must be wholly the holder's, or no one would take part — sovereignty is the incentive; and a grounded star acknowledges a real good — kept and studied, not traded. The whole star transfers; the verified-fact layer travels with it, immutable.*
* **custody-by-default → optional self-custody** — *why: a recipient with no keys must still receive; sovereignty is offered, never forced.*
* **AI integrity boundary** — AI touches authored expression only, never verified fact. *Why: the protocol's value is that a recorded claim is true; AI that could write fact would break that.*
* **verified-before-recorded** — no physical-world claim is recorded without an independent accountable source. *Why: the chain makes a claim permanent, not true.*
* **one payment, one destination — never split.** A mint carrying a mission is a **Drop**: the full amount, charitable, to the anchor, for the mission. Everything else — composing, plain mints, every Cast — is ordinary commerce, and touches no charitable funds. The user's choice routes the payment. *Why: support must arrive whole, where it was promised; a payment that splits in the dark is a payment no one can trust.*

***

## Part D · Reference (supports Part B)

**Objects & semantics**

* **station (minted)** = the holder's anchored, sovereign, on-chain form of their station — born at the mint, carrying a mission or plain. The chain entry of the protocol.
* **NaviStar** = an ERC-1155 token with two layers: an **immutable verified-fact layer** (what was done, where, confirmed) and a **mutable NaviCanvas-page pointer** (the living, authored page). AI may touch only the second.
* **Realm** = a **Signet** (ERC-721 key, = the holder) → an **ERC-6551 token-bound account** → the NaviStars it holds. The holder's sovereign space.
* **constellation** = the on-chain link of all NaviStars cast from one station — scattered across recipients' Realms, joined as one circle.

**Lifecycle / state machine**

* Composed → Broadcast (off-chain, optional) → **mint** (station on-chain; mission → Drop, or plain) → **Cast** (NaviStar to a person, repeatable) → Claimed → custody / self-custody → freely transferable, never sold. (Exact states and events: the reference implementation.)

**Substrate (constitutional, non-configurable)**

* Polygon · ENS `earthlinc.eth` · ERC-1155 + ERC-721 + ERC-6551.

**Glossary (formal)**

* **station** — the living form a holder opens around their X; minted, it becomes their anchored on-chain asset.
* **NaviCanvas** — the AI that composes a station's living page (write).
* **Broadcast** — sharing a station open and free; web2, off-chain.
* **mint** — the station's on-chain birth — carrying a mission, or plain.
* **mission** — the real earth action a mint can carry, attested by the anchor.
* **Drop** — the payment of a mission mint: the full amount, charitable, to the anchor.
* **Cast** — casting a NaviStar to a person, from a minted station.
* **NaviStar** — the on-chain artifact a recipient receives; the kept page.
* **constellation** — all NaviStars from one station, linked on-chain.
* **Realm** — a holder's sovereign on-chain space.
* **Naviscape** — the Realm's living surface.
* **Navi** — the Realm's surface; surfaces the Realm, never generates verified fact.
* **keep** — holding what is yours, in your Realm.

***

## Part E · What's locked vs open

* **Constitutional (locked):** the substrate; the three acts (Broadcast · mint · Cast); the AI integrity boundary; sovereign transferability (plain editions free · grounded editions carry the contract-layer marketplace block); verified-before-recorded; one-payment-one-destination; YuCROWN as anchor.
* **Open / extensible:** more agents at the compose layer; more missions at the mint; more stations and surfaces (any X).
* **Anchor & trust model:** YuCROWN anchors the missions, the verification, and the public trust — and receives exactly one thing: the Drop of a mission mint, in full. Everything commercial runs apart from it, so support reaches missions whole. Companies run on the protocol; no company owns it. *Anchored, never owned.*

***

## Appendix

* **The study:** what people do with the protocol is studied openly by C// (YuCROWN). The protocol is the instrument; the studying is C//'s. (See What is C//.)
* **Implementation & engineering detail** — interfaces, ABIs, and the reference implementation — is published separately.

***

*Earth Lin*C\* Protocol — a station for any X, minted once; a NaviStar for a person, cast again and again; a mission carried to the ground. Sovereign, permanent, open. The mint anchors; the Cast connects.\*


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