Ten years ago, on July 30, 2015, Ethereum's "Frontier" network went live, mining its genesis block and launching what would become the world's most programmable blockchain. Just months earlier, on April 12, 2015, a foundational document was published that would govern every significant upgrade to follow: EIP-1, authored by Martin Becze and Hudson Jameson. This simple proposal established the transparent improvement process that has driven every protocol upgrade, token standard, consensus change and layer-2 in Ethereum's history.

From that foundational framework, over 1,000 EIPs have been created, with 530 ERCs (application standards), 337 Core EIPs (protocol changes) and 22 Networking EIPs transforming Ethereum from an experimental "world computer" into the backbone of a $400+ billion ecosystem. These proposals represent the democratic, transparent process by which one of humanity's most important technological platforms continues to evolve and improve.

Era 1: Inception & Core Protocol (2015–2017)

The Foundation Years

The foundational era began with establishing the very process by which improvements would be proposed, discussed, and implemented. This period laid the groundwork for everything that followed, creating the standards that would enable the explosion of decentralized applications.

Landmark EIPs:

EIP	Date	Core Contribution
EIP-1	April 12, 2015	Established the proposal process that governs Ethereum development, defining status states from Draft to Final
EIP-20 (ERC-20)	November 19, 2015	Fabian Vogelsteller's fungible token standard that enabled the ICO boom and became foundation for 30,000+ tokens
EIP-721 (ERC-721)	January 24, 2018	William Entriken and team's Non-Fungible Token standard that created the foundation for the multi-billion dollar NFT ecosystem

DevCon I Retrospective

At DevCon 1 in London (November 9-13, 2015), the optimism was palpable as developers gathered to shape Ethereum's future. As Ethereum wallet designer Alex Van de Sande famously declared during the conference:

"The internet kind of sucks. It's centralized, and it's broken but we can fix it this week."

This sentiment captured the revolutionary spirit driving early EIP development, where developers believed they were building the infrastructure for a new decentralized web. The quote proved prophetic by the end of 2017, ERC-20 contract count had already passed 30,000, catalyzing the ICO wave that would define the next era.

Era 2: Tokenization & Performance (2018–2020)

The Scaling and Standards Era

As Ethereum matured beyond its experimental phase, the focus shifted to optimizing performance and enabling the complex token economies that would define DeFi and NFTs. This era saw the creation of standards that would support billion-dollar ecosystems and crucial gas optimizations.

Landmark EIPs:

EIP	Date	Impact & Innovation
EIP-1884	March 28, 2019	Martin Holst Swende's gas cost adjustments as state grew, increasing SLOAD from 200 to 800 gas to address DoS vectors
EIP-2535 (Diamonds)	February 22, 2020	Nick Mudge's modular smart contract standard enabling unlimited upgradeability through faceted proxy architecture
EIP-1559	Specified 2019, Activated August 5, 2021	Revolutionary base fee + tip mechanism with ETH burning that transformed fee predictability

EIP-1559

Before the London hard fork, Ethereum users faced a chaotic first-price auction system where gas prices were unpredictable and often led to massive overpayments during network congestion. EIP-1559 introduced a two-part fee structure: a predictable base fee (which gets burned, making ETH deflationary) and an optional priority tip for miners.

Impact by the Numbers:

Over $9 billion worth of ETH has been burned since implementation
Transaction fee predictability improved by approximately 70%
Network utilization became more stable with flexible block sizes (15M target, 30M max)
ETH inflation dropped from 4.6% to approximately 0.8% annually

As one user noted in community feedback:

"EIP-1559 transformed my DeFi experience from stressful guesswork to predictable transactions. Finally, I could budget for gas fees."

The upgrade also introduced the concept of Tâtonnement, where the base fee automatically adjusts based on network demand to maintain the gas target, creating a more stable and efficient fee market.

Era 3: Consensus & Security (2021–2023)

The Great Transition

This transformative period saw Ethereum complete its most ambitious upgrade ever: transitioning from energy-intensive Proof-of-Work to efficient Proof-of-Stake, while laying the groundwork for massive scalability improvements through proto-danksharding.

Landmark EIPs:

EIP	Date	Network Impact
EIP-2982	September 15, 2020	The Beacon Chain Blueprint: Danny Ryan and Vitalik Buterin's specification for "Serenity Phase 0" that launched the beacon chain as the foundation for Ethereum's transition to Proof-of-Stake
EIP-3675	July 22, 2021	The Merge Specification: Completed the transition from PoW to PoS, reducing energy consumption by 99.95%
EIP-4844	February 10, 2022 spec, March 13, 2024 mainnet	Proto-danksharding introducing "blobs" that reduced L2 data costs by 10-100×

Vitalik Buterin on EIP-3675

When discussing the philosophy behind Ethereum's governance through EIPs and the significance of The Merge, Vitalik Buterin emphasized the importance of institutions over individual heroics:

"It's not heroes but institutions that make Ethereum work. What you really need is a structure and society that binds the tiny, inadequate speck of good that each person can do together".

This philosophy has guided the collaborative EIP process that enabled Ethereum's democratic evolution over the past decade. The Merge itself represented the culmination of years of research and development, with the Beacon Chain operating successfully since December 2020 before finally merging with the mainnet.

Post-Merge Impact:

Validator set grew to over 1 million validators
Annual ETH issuance dropped from 4.6% to 0.6%
Energy consumption reduced by 99.95%, equivalent to removing the Netherlands' entire energy usage
Network security strengthened through economic finality and slashing conditions

Era 4: Scaling & The Future (2024–2025)

Infinite Scalability Horizon

The current era focuses on scaling Ethereum to serve billions of users while maintaining decentralization and security. These recent and upcoming EIPs promise to unlock Ethereum's full potential through validator efficiency improvements and account abstraction.

Landmark EIPs:

EIP	Date/Status	Forward Focus
EIP-4788	March 13, 2024 (Dencun)	Beacon block roots in EVM enabling trust-minimized access to consensus layer data for L2s and bridges
EIP-7251	Pectra Upgrade, May 7, 2025	Increases validator maximum effective balance from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH for improved capital efficiency
EIP-7702	Pectra Upgrade, May 7, 2025	Enables EOAs to delegate execution to smart contracts, providing account abstraction features like batching and gas sponsorship
EIP-4361	October 11, 2021	Sign-In with Ethereum: Wayne Chang and team's standard for decentralized authentication, enabling users to control their digital identity using Ethereum accounts instead of centralized providers like Google or Faceboo
EIP-5069	May 2, 2022	The Editor's Handbook Story: Born from Pooja Ranjan's EIP Editor "apprentice" handbook on HackMD, this proposal formalized the long-needed documentation of EIP Editor roles and responsibilities, addressing the growing complexity of the standardization process
EIP-7587	December 21, 2023	RIP Address Reservation: Carl Beekhuizen and team reserved precompile address range 0x0100-0x01ff for Rollup Improvement Proposals (RIPs), ensuring no conflicts between L1 and L2 precompiles
EIP-7623	February 13, 2024	Network Upgrade Process Formalization: This proposal stemmed from Pooja Ranjan's Medium article "Shedding light on the Ethereum Network Upgrade Process," which documented the need to formalize and improve the network upgrade process after years of evolution

The Pectra Revolution

The Pectra upgrade (Prague + Electra), which went live on May 7, 2025, represents the largest update since The Merge, introducing 11 EIPs that fundamentally enhance Ethereum's staking mechanism and user experience.

EIP-7251's Validator Consolidation:

Allows validators to stake up to 2,048 ETH instead of managing multiple 32 ETH validators
Enables reward compounding without spinning up additional validator instances
Reduces network load by consolidating the validator set while maintaining decentralization
Adjusts slashing penalties proportionally to maintain security (1/4,096 vs 1/32 of effective balance)

EIP-7702's Account Abstraction:

Enables EOAs to batch transactions, sponsor gas fees, and manage sub-keys
Preserves user identity and address history while adding smart contract capabilities
Compatible with existing wallets and infrastructure, eliminating migration barriers
Provides stepping stone to full account abstraction without protocol changes

Revolutionary Proposals on the Horizon

EIP-7805 (FOCIL)- Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists: A committee-based mechanism to preserve Ethereum's censorship resistance as specialized builders dominate block production. FOCIL ensures that 90% of Ethereum's decentralized validators can enforce transaction inclusion, preventing censorship by centralized builders.

EIP-7732 (ePBS) - Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation: Integrates proposer-builder separation directly into Ethereum's protocol, eliminating reliance on external relays and creating a transparent auction mechanism for block space.

EIP-7892 (BPO) - Blob Parameter Only Hardforks: Introduces lightweight mechanisms for incrementally scaling Ethereum's blob capacity through specialized hard forks that modify only blob-related parameters, enabling more agile responses to L2 scaling demands.

Over the past decade, EIPs have transformed Ethereum from an experimental platform into the foundation of a new digital economy. EIP-1's simple governance framework to the EIP-4844's proto-danksharding, each proposal has contributed to a system that now processes hundreds of billions in annual transaction volume while maintaining decentralization and security.

Looking ahead, Danksharding will enable thousands of transactions per second through full data availability sampling. Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization standards will bridge traditional finance with DeFi protocols. Account abstraction via EIP-7702 will make Ethereum as user-friendly as traditional web applications, removing the final barriers to mass adoption.

The story of EIPs is the story of thousands of developers, researchers, and community members working together through transparent governance to build the infrastructure for a decentralized future. As Ethereum celebrates its 10th anniversary on July 30, 2025, we celebrate not just the technology, but the democratic process that made it possible.

Share your favorite EIP memory or the proposal that most impacted your Ethereum journey in the comments below on EIPsInsight. Your stories help document the human side of this technological revolution and every contribution matters in building the next decade of Ethereum standards. Together, we're building a better internet.

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