Answering the most common questions about EIPs and ERCs
Published in · 4 min read · Jul 30, 2021
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EIPs and ERC Standards in Ethereum are a huge rabbit hole in which people are losing themselves into. Although Ethereum standards known as EIPs and ERCs are pretty well known, people still keep asking questions as to why do we even have them and use them. In this article I will try to break down all things that you should know about standards and how to create one by yourself.
Standards are definitions of web technology defining principles using which system works.
Standard is a unification document promoting the designing process whose outcome represents consensus, fairness, public accountability and quality. In the Ethereum ecosystem, standards are unifying how functions of code works, defining code operations. In the Web2 ecosystem, standards are usually created by W3C and it’s members.
In the Web3 ecosystem, standards (EIPs and ERCs) are created by the community allowing anyone to create and submit their own standard. These standards are going through formal process of accepting or denying the EIP.
Standards were made to make implementation of designing features easier. We are using standards to uniform information. On Ethereum we are using similar tools that have basic functions that are defined by standards. For example ERC20 token standard, full list of EIPs here.
We are designing new financial primitives that are being used by millions of people daily. We need to hold on to some basic rules to define how operations will work, standardise naming, standardise token transfer, how tokens will be transferred and design rules around these principles. Otherwise every project will build its own way and there won’t be much interoperability between projects.
EIP stands for Ethereum Improvement Proposal providing design or information, new features and its processes of the environment to the Ethereum Community. EIPs are supposed to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features for Ethereum, collecting technical input on an issue from the community and documenting design decisions in Ethereum.
EIPs were made as a suitable way to track the progress of design changes to Ethereum. Nowadays they are being used to define design functions of Ethereum.
EIPs are sorted into categories: Core, Interface, Networking, Meta, Informational and ERCs.
ERC stands for Ethereum Request (for) Comments which outlines the set of rules and recommendations developers must follow in order to implement new features. ERCs are on-chain application layer related EIPs.
The main difference between EIPs and ERCs is that EIPs are defining mainly Ethereum Core functions and ERCs are defining decentralised application layer functions and designs. ERC is just one of many categories of EIPs but ERCs are the most used EIPs which is a reason why they are so popular and often discussed.
Ethereum is an open ecosystem that anyone can fork, contribute and add new features. Developers are proposing new standards which are going through a formal process in which a group of people from All Core Devs, Ethereum Cat Herders, EIP Editors decides whether the EIP gets implemented or not. This process requires wider community feedback on EIP/ERC which is happening on ethereum/eips GitHub repo and Ethereum Magicians forum. This process is outlined in EIP-1.
Anyone can create EIP or ERC, you should read EIP-1 which outlines the EIP process, what is EIP, types of EIPs, what EIP document should contain, EIP format and template, list of EIP Editors and all you need to know about EIPs. Make sure to read it before you commit yourself into creating an EIP. Your new EIP should define a new feature that is not really complex yet not super niche and can be used within the ecosystem. The hardest part is facilitation, you as the author need to facilitate people around your EIP, collect feedback, write articles describing problems that your EIP solves and collaborate with projects to implement it.
Successful EIP or ERC does not need to be in the “Final” stage in order to be successful. Projects need to use the EIP in order to be considered as successful — this rule applies only to ERCs not core EIPs which are being implemented to keep the network healthy.
The ERC20 Token Standard is the most popular ERC which was created by Vitalik Buterin and Fabian Vogelsteller. This standard has kicked off the ICO craze in 2017 and is being used nowadays for creating tokens on Ethereum. More than 70% of tokens that exist on Ethereum are using ERC20 token contract. Full list of all tokens using ERC20 standard
If you are curious to learn more about ERCs I gave a talk on ERCs and Application layer standards on Peep an EIP show hosted by Ethereum Cat Herders. Slides | Recording.
I’m building documentation for NFT standards related ERCs Wiki with related links to Non Fungible Token ERCs.
Links:
Thank you to Pooja Ranjan for checking out earlier versions of this article.
