In 2015, ERC-20 was created, a standard developed by the Ethereum community, which was officially recognized in September 2017. To create a standard of this type, a developer or group of developers must submit what is known as an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) where the new functionality is explained along with its specific protocols and standards. The proposal goes to a committee that reviews, approves, amends and finalizes that EIP, which would then become an ERC.

Smart contracts and other features within Ethereum are required to comply with all approved standards. Although the Create ERC20 token is perhaps the most important and best known of all ERCs, it is certainly not the only one that exists.

Contents of the ERC-20 standard

The ERC-20 contains several functions that a token in compliance with the established rules must be able to implement.

TotalSupply – Information about the total supply of tokens.

BalanceOf – owner's account balance.

Transfer - Carry out the transfer of a certain quantity of tokens to a given address.

TransferFrom – Executes transfers of a specific number of tokens from a specific address

Approve – Allows a spender to withdraw a specified amount of tokens from a specific account

Allowance – Returns a given amount of tokens from a spender to the owner

Today, people can trade ERC-20 tokens in P2P transactions or through exchange platforms like Coinbase.