Allowlist: Flexible Transfer Restrictions

Overview & Motivation

Small companies often enforce statutory transfer restrictions to control their shareholder base. As these companies grow — and particularly when approaching public markets — they typically relax or abandon such restrictions entirely.

Aktionariat’s allowlist implementation enables a flexible and gradual transition:

• From tightly controlled transferability,
• To partial or full free float,
• With the option to reverse course if needed.

The system supports both restricted and freely transferable tokens in parallel, empowering companies to manage shareholder mobility with precision.

Note

By default, tokens are freely transferable. The allowlist lets you create a walled garden of addresses that can transact with each other, but cannot send shares outside the wall. Individual addresses can also be frozen.

---

Address Types

Four address types determine how token transfers are governed:

Allowed

• Can receive tokens from anyone
• Can send tokens only to allowed or admin addresses

Admin

• Behave like allowed addresses
• Additionally, automatically allowlist any address they send tokens to
• The null address (0x0) is admin by default — this allows minting without allowlisting the recipient, and prevents newly minted tokens from entering the free float unintentionally

Frozen

• Cannot receive tokens from anyone
• Can send tokens only to admin addresses

Default

• Can send to default, allowed, and admin addresses
• Can receive only from other default addresses
• This is the type assigned to all new addresses by default

---

Token Types

Tokens are implicitly categorized based on the address type they reside on:

Token Type	Description
Frozen tokens	Reside on frozen addresses. Can only be sent to allowed addresses.
Free float tokens	Reside on default addresses. Can be sent to any address except frozen ones.

Caution

Transferability is determined by the involved addresses, not by the tokens themselves.

A dedicated function exists to suspend all restrictions entirely, effectively turning all tokens into free float tokens.

---

Limited Free Float: A Strategic Use Case

The allowlist enables a partial free float — a valuable mechanism for growth-stage companies that want to bring in external investors while maintaining control over their existing cap table.

Example scenario:

1. All shares start as restricted tokens held by allowlisted shareholders.
2. The company designates its treasury wallet as a default address.
3. Tokens in the treasury are now freely transferable, while existing shareholders remain restricted.
4. Over time, additional wallets can be declared free to gradually increase the free float.

This approach enables:

• Controlled onboarding of external investors
• Gradual liberalization of share transferability
• Preservation of strategic control throughout the process

---

Flexibility & Reversibility

The allowlist architecture supports:

• Granular permissioning — different rules for different shareholder types
• Coexistence — restricted and freely tradable tokens can exist simultaneously
• Reversibility — companies can re-impose restrictions at any time by reassigning address types

---

For Developers & Integrators

The allowlist is enforced at the smart contract level. You can programmatically:

• Change address types via setAddressType
• Suspend or re-enable all restrictions via suspendRestrictions
• Monitor transfer behavior via emitted on-chain events

Tip

See the Technical Reference — Allowlisting for the full contract interface and integration details.