ERC or Ethereum Request for Comments are technical documents utilized by Ethereum smart contract developers. The documents define rules that are required to be followed when implementing tokens in the ecosystem.
ERCs themselves are usually created by developers on Ethereum and consist of information regarding contract descriptions and protocol specifications.
Several ERC standards define a set of functions targeted at specific token types. This allows for predictability, allowing smart contracts to interact with them seamlessly.
The most prevalent ERC standard is the ERC-20 standard. Let’s look at some of the different types of ERC standards.
- ERC-20 – This is the most common ERC standard and is used for fungible tokens, enabling the transfer of tokens and tracking balances.
- ERC-233 – This standard prevents accidental contract transfers
- ERC-721 – The ERC-721 standard is the most popular NFT standard. NFTs are unique, while fungible tokens are interchangeable (i.e. 1 $USDC = 1 USDC, while every BAYC and Portrait Punk is unique.).
- ERC-809 – This standard allows for the renting of rival NFTs. An NFT can be defined as a “rival NFT” if the ownership by one individual prevents simultaneous ownership by another individual.
The community reviews the ERC standards through the Ethereum Improvement Proposal or EIP. The community shares its feedback on the documents, with the developers incorporating the community feedback.
Once the community accepts the documents after the EIP process, the document becomes an ERC.
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