Ethereum Standards: How a Proposal Gets Accepted
Your ERC proposal was just merged into the repository. Is it a standard now?
IN 30 SECONDS
An ERC is a public rule for Ethereum apps, such as how a token must behave, proposed and reviewed in the open. EIP-1 sets its path: Idea, Draft, Review, Last Call, Final. This stage shows what reviewers need at each step.
KEY TAKEAWAYS · 3
- EIP-1 sets one public path for every ERC: Idea, Draft, Review, Last Call, Final. Not every proposal reaches the end.
- Merged is not Final. An editor merges a proposal as a Draft once it’s well formed, complete and sound.
- Final status and real adoption are separate milestones.
On this page
The problem: good ideas that stall
IN SHORT A stalled proposal gets a status label, and the label doesn’t tell you why progress stopped.
Source: EIP-1. The status can be reversed.
An ERC The kind of EIP that sets rules for apps, such as how a token or a wallet behaves. ERC-20, the token standard, is one. See the glossary can carry a useful idea and still never finish. Under EIP-1, a proposal in Draft, Review or Last Call with six months or more of inactivity can move to Stagnant. That status can be reversed later.
What an author can improve is concrete: scope the proposal, make it easy to build, and keep the open questions visible.
Source: the ERCs repository on GitHub.
I’m one of the five named authors of ERC-3643 (T-REX, now Final), the first of six authors of ERC-6960 (Dual Layer Token, Draft) and a co-author of ERC-7410 (allowance updates, Draft).
I’m also a co-author, second of three, of ERC-8203. It’s still a Draft in open A change submitted for review on GitHub. #1614. It isn’t Merged Added as a file to the ethereum/ERCs repository. An editor merges a proposal as a Draft once it’s well formed, complete and sound, so merged doesn’t mean Final. See the glossary.
Words to know before the process
IN SHORT An ERC is a shared rule that teams who never meet can build against. The other words name how it gets reviewed.
WORDS TO KNOW
- EIP
- Ethereum Improvement Proposal: a public design document that proposes a change or a shared rule for Ethereum.
- ERC
- The kind of EIP that sets rules for apps, such as how a token or a wallet behaves. ERC-20, the token standard, is one.
- EIP editor
- A member of the editor group that checks a proposal is well formed, complete and sound. Under EIP-1, editors don’t pass judgment on the idea.
- Merged
- Added as a file to the ethereum/ERCs repository. An editor merges a proposal as a Draft once it’s well formed, complete and sound, so merged doesn’t mean Final.
- Last Call
- The final review window before Final, typically 14 days, opened once the author considers the spec stable.
ADAM says: An ERC works like the standard shape of a wall socket: makers who never met build plugs that fit. Where it breaks: a socket standard usually comes from a standards body, an ERC from an open process.
IN PLAIN WORDS
In that open process, EIP editor A member of the editor group that checks a proposal is well formed, complete and sound. Under EIP-1, editors don’t pass judgment on the idea. See the glossary check form and soundness, not the idea’s worth. And Final status doesn’t by itself oblige anyone to adopt the standard.
Coming up next: So what does the path from idea to Final look like?
How an ERC moves from idea to Final
IN SHORT EIP-1 sets one public path for every ERC: Idea, Draft, Review, Last Call, then Final. Not every proposal reaches the end.
STEP BY STEP
Step 1. Idea. EIP-1 recommends posting the problem on Ethereum Magicians, the community forum, first. This stage isn’t tracked in the repository, and no reply isn’t a formal rejection.
- Idea EIP-1 recommends posting the problem on Ethereum Magicians, the community forum, first. This stage isn’t tracked in the repository, and no reply isn’t a formal rejection.
- Draft You open a pull request in the ERCs repository. An editor merges it as a Draft once it’s well formed, complete and sound.
- Review You ask for peer review. Reviewers look for edge cases and conflicts. There’s no fixed duration.
- Last Call Once the spec is stable, you open the final review window, typically 14 days.
- Back to Review If Last Call forces a normative change, meaning a change to the rules that implementations must follow, the proposal goes back to Review.
- Final Final is the finished standard. After that, it should only get error fixes and non-normative clarifications.
- Stagnant Six months without activity in Draft, Review or Last Call moves it to Stagnant. Authors or editors can move it back to Draft or to its earlier status.
The official EIP-1 workflow sets this path for every EIP Ethereum Improvement Proposal: a public design document that proposes a change or a shared rule for Ethereum. See the glossary. What reviewers need changes at each step: a clear problem, a correct format, answers to edge cases, then a stable spec.
The Last Call The final review window before Final, typically 14 days, opened once the author considers the spec stable. See the glossary is the last check before Final: a rule change found there costs you another round of Review.
ITEM GET
Merged is not Final
Sources: EIP-1, ERC-3643, ERC-6960, ERC-7410, ERC-8203 (Draft, open PR #1614, not merged).
FAQ
There’s no promised time. A contested proposal may never finish, and a normative change in Last Call sends it back to Review. Plan for rounds of feedback, not a fixed date.
STAGE CLEAR
What you now know
- You can name the five steps of the EIP-1 path and what reviewers look for at each one.
- You can explain why merging alone doesn’t make a proposal Final.
- You know a quiet proposal can turn Stagnant, and that this can be undone.
Check yourself
Tap or click a question to see the answer.
An editor has just merged the first pull request for your proposal into the ERCs repository. Can you say your standard is accepted?
No. That first merge only records it as a Draft. It still has to go through Review and Last Call to reach Final, and even Final doesn’t oblige anyone to adopt it.
During Last Call, one reviewer spots a typo in a code comment. Another finds a bug that forces you to change a function signature. Which one sends the proposal back to Review?
The bug. A new signature changes what builders must do, so it’s a normative change. The typo changes nothing builders must do. Once the spec is stable again, it can re-enter Last Call.
Web3 x AI engineer, former CTO of Integra. Named author (1 of 5) of ERC-3643, first author of ERC-6960, co-author of ERC-7410, and co-author of ERC-8203, which is still a draft.
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