In this track: Tokens and digital ownership
intermediate · 3 MIN READ

ERC-721 ownership and token IDs

A standard ownership query names one individually tracked token.

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A library’s owner record for inventory item 42 differs from merely counting how many books a member holds.

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Build a transfer call from typed fieldsStep 1 / 4
Build a transfer call from typed fieldstransfer(address,uint256)Recipient: 0x0000…0001Raw amount: 100Diagram labels abbreviate addresses; the lab shows full bytes4-byte selectora9059cbbEach box is one byte; this prefix is not a 32-byte wordWord 0 · recipient address12 zero bytes20 address bytes000…0001Left padding preserves the lower-order address valueSelector4 bytesa9059cbbAddress32 bytesword 0Amount32 bytesword 1 → 0x644 + 32 + 32 = 68 bytesThe integer does not contain token decimals or market price

The standard transfer interface takes an address and a raw integer amount. This diagram uses address one and amount one hundred.

Animated local teaching model. No wallet, RPC or live blockchain data. Some labels and hashes are abbreviated for readability.

OwnerOf identifies the holder

The ERC-721 interface includes ownerOf(tokenId), while balanceOf(owner) counts the owner’s items. One is an identity query; the other is a count. They answer different questions.

Approvals can have different scopes

ERC-721 supports approval for a particular token and operator approval covering an owner’s tokens under the standard’s rules. A wallet prompt should make the scope understandable.

Transfer events need their actual layout

The familiar Transfer(address,address,uint256) signature also appears in ERC-20 contexts, but ERC-721 commonly indexes the token ID too. Matching the signature hash alone does not prove the topic/data layout or asset semantics.

Do not use the wrong decoder

Our event tool intentionally decodes the common ERC-20 Transfer shape. It does not claim to be a universal NFT log decoder. Supply and inspect the correct ABI when working with other standards.

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Does ERC-721 balanceOf(owner) directly name which token IDs the owner holds?

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