ERC-3770: Chain-specific addresses

Abstract #

ERC-3770 introduces a new address standard to be adapted by wallets and dApps to display chain-specific addresses by using a human-reacable prefix.

Motivation #

The need for this proposal emerges from the increasing adoption of non-Ethereum Mainnet chains that use the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). In this context, addresses become ambiguous, as the same address may refer to an EOA on chain X or a smart contract on chain Y. This will eventually lead to Ethereum users losing funds due to human error. For example, users sending funds to a smart contract wallet address which was not deployed on a particular chain.

Therefore we should prefix addresses with a unique identifier that signals to Dapps and wallets on what chain the target account is. In theory, this prefix could be a EIP-155 chainID. However, these chain IDs are not meant to be displayed to users in dApps or wallets, and they were optimized for developer interoperability, rather than human readability.

Specification #

This proposal extends addresses with a human-readable blockchain short name.

Syntax #

A chain-specific address is prefixed with a chain shortName, separated with a colon sign (😃.

Chain-specific address = "shortName" ":" "address"

• shortName = STRING

• address = STRING

Semantics #

`shortName` is mandatory and MUST be a valid chain short name from https://github.com/ethereum-lists/chains
  
`address` is mandatory and MUST be a [ERC-55](./eip-55.md) compatible hexadecimal address

Examples #

Rationale #

To solve the initial problem of user-facing addresses being ambiguous in a multichain context, we need to map EIP-155 chain IDs with a user-facing format of displaying chain identifiers.

Backwards Compatibility #

Ethereum addresses without the chain specifier will continue to require additional context to understand which chain the address refers to.

Security Considerations #

The Ethereum List curators must consider how similar looking chain short names can be used to confuse users.

Copyright #

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.