(
Ethereum
Request for
Comments
-20) A fungible token standard on the Ethereum blockchain. Introduced in 2015, each ERC-20 token is equal in value to all other ERC-20 tokens of the same type just like one dollar bill is the same as any other.
Ether Is Native, ERC-20 Tokens Are Non-Native
Ethereum's native cryptocurrency is ether; however, all other crypto coins that reside on Ethereum are created as smart contracts that conform to ERC-20. There are thousands of different ERC-20 crypto tokens, most of which were created to profit from their rising price, but rarely do.
Most crypto wallets support ERC-20 to enable their users to trade a huge variety of cryptocurrencies. Ethereum's native crypto was created before ERC-20 and is therefore not ERC-20 compliant. However, ETH can be "wrapped" in a token for compatibility (see
wETH).
Inside an ERC-20 Smart Contract
An ERC-20 smart contract stipulates the maximum amount of tokens that can be minted, how many decimal places a token can be divided, the total number of tokens that can be created and more. It also keeps track of users' coin balances. Contrast with Ethereum's non-fungible token (NFT) standards (see
ERC-721 and
ERC-777) and semi-fungible standard (see
ERC-1155). See
Ethereum,
Ethereum token and
wrapped token.
MAJOR ERCs
# Token Type
20 Fungible
777 Fungible
721 Non-fungible
1155 Semi-fungible