ERC (Ethereum Request for Comments)
ERC stands for ‘Ethereum Request for Comments’ and is a document that smart contract programmers using the Ethereum blockchain platform write12. These documents describe rules that Ethereum-based tokens must comply with. ERCs are specifications for Ethereum applications, such as token standards, name registries, library formats, and package formats2. An author may create an Ethereum Blockchain app with an ERC token, but they will need to clarify their standard and gain community approval.
The ERC-20 (Ethereum Request for Comments 20), proposed by Fabian Vogelsteller in November 2015, is a Token Standard that implements an API for tokens within Smart Contracts.
Example functionalities ERC-20 provides:
- transfer tokens from one account to another
- get the current token balance of an account
- get the total supply of the token available on the network
- approve whether an amount of token from an account can be spent by a third-party account
If a Smart Contract implements the following methods and events it can be called an ERC-20 Token Contract and, once deployed, it will be responsible to keep track of the created tokens on Ethereum.
Interest in learning more about ERC token standards? This article, Understanding ERC Standards, is a great place to start.
Sources:
Bing Search & ERC-20 Token Standard | ethereum.org
