Term

Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)

The standard process for proposing and specifying changes or standards for the Ethereum ecosystem.

Type:
eth
standard
Also known as:
EIP
1
process

EIPs document technical standards for Ethereum, including core protocol changes, client APIs, and contract standards like ERC-20 and ERC-721. Each proposal goes through stages: Draft, Review, Last Call, and Final (or Withdrawn/Rejected).

Example 1.1

EIP-1559 changed the transaction fee mechanism by introducing a base fee burn and separate tip, affecting ETH’s supply dynamics and user experience.

2
categories

Categories include Core (consensus and networking), Networking (p2p/RLPx), Interface (JSON-RPC), and ERCs (application standards). Governance occurs through open discussion across repos, calls, and client implementations.

Example 2.1

The ERC track produced ERC-20 and ERC-721, enabling fungible tokens and NFTs that wallets and exchanges can support uniformly.

All terms and definitions may update as the Cryptionary improves.