ERC-20

ERC-20 is one of the most widely recognized and adopted token standards on the Ethereum blockchain, enabling the creation of fungible tokens. ERC stands for "Ethereum Request for Comment," and 20 is the proposal identifier. It was introduced to streamline the process of creating and managing tokens by providing a universal set of rules that all tokens must follow to interact with each other and with decentralized applications (dApps). Fungible tokens, like ERC-20, are identical in value and properties. Most tokens created during ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) between 2017 and 2018 were ERC-20 tokens. These tokens can represent anything from currency units to ownership stakes in decentralized protocols or companies. Examples of ERC-20 tokens include USDT (Tether), UNI (Uniswap), and LINK (Chainlink). The ERC-20 standard covers six essential functions, including transferring tokens and checking the balance of addresses, which makes token interactions smoother and consistent across the Ethereum ecosystem.