What Is EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal)?
Also known as: Ethereum Improvement Proposal
In short
An EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) is a formal design document that describes in technical detail proposals for new features and processes for the Ethereum protocol, its clients or application standards; changes to Ethereum are proposed and discussed through this process.
The EIP process was inspired by Bitcoin's BIP and Python's PEP processes, and its rules are defined in the EIP-1 document. Anyone can write an EIP draft and submit it to the public GitHub repository. Proposals go through stages such as Draft, Review, Last Call and Final; EIP editors check that documents comply with format and process rules.
EIPs are divided by type. Standards Track proposals cover Core, which changes consensus rules; Networking, related to network communication; Interface, related to client interfaces; and ERC (Ethereum Request for Comments), which defines application-level standards. In addition, there are process-related Meta and informational Informational EIPs. The ERC-20 token standard, the EIP-1559 fee reform and EIP-4844 blob transactions are well-known examples.
Writing an EIP does not mean the proposal will be added to the network. Core EIPs that change consensus rules are discussed in client developers' regular meetings (All Core Devs); those deemed suitable are included in a network upgrade (hard fork) and take effect after being implemented in all clients. The adoption of ERCs, on the other hand, depends on the choice of wallet and application developers.
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