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What is Unlock Protocol?

Unlock is a protocol that developers, creators, and platforms can use to create onchain memberships and subscriptions. Unlock’s goal is to ease implementation and increase conversion from “users” to “members,” creating a much healthier monetization environment for the web.

In short, Unlock is an open-source, collectively owned, community-governed, peer-to-peer system that creates time-based (potentially recurring) memberships.

There are a number of interdependent components of Unlock. These are:

  • Unlock Protocol: A suite of upgradable smart contracts that create memberships as NFTs.
  • The Unlock Ecosystem: A community of creators, distributors, and consumers who share ownership of Unlock Protocol through their contributions using the protocol.
  • Unlock DAO: A decentralized organization of token holders who govern and control Unlock Protocol.
  • Unlock Protocol Foundation: A Cayman Islands Foundation whose purpose is to act in service of the Unlock ecosystem and DAO.
  • Unlock Tools: Front-end convenience applications originally created by Unlock Labs to further sustainable innovation on Unlock Protocol, and now maintained by members of the Unlock Ecosystem.

From 2018 through 2025, Unlock Labs created Unlock Protocol to provide an open, shared infrastructure for memberships that removes friction, increases conversion, enables scale, reduces costs, and evolves the web from a business model built on attention toward one based on membership. Unlock Labs completed its mission and finalized its transfer of responsibilities to the Unlock Protocol Foundation and the Unlock DAO in 2025.

The Unlock Protocol is controlled by the Unlock Ecosystem, not the Unlock Protocol Foundation, and is governed by the Unlock DAO.

We aim for Unlock Protocol to be the primitive for every membership, both online and offline, around the globe. Together, we will create an internet owned and monetized by creators and their supporters.

If you'd like to read more on the entirety of our vision continue on to our Litepaper where we dig into the details.