ERC-721, the free open standard non-fungible token achieved final status on June 21st. Whereas many tokens are fungible (units are interchangeable), ERC-721 stands out as all its tokens are unique.
The ERC-721 token standard was largely authored by William Entriken and has been incorporated into Ethereum, which is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency. ERC-721 makes it possible for its token holders to both create and control their in-game virtual goods such as avatar skins, weapons, and other assets.
Development of ERC-721
ERC-721 began as an EIP draft which was authored by dete and was first deployed in and first came to life in Axiom Zen’s CryptoKitties project. Since then, ERC-721 shifted out of draft status and now has a flourishing community which includes a range of projects built by developers from many different areas of the cryptocurrency industry.
Implications of Final Status
One example of how ERC-721’s finalization impacts company is BLMP. The BLMP platform architecture is built on top of the ERC-721 standard. Up until this point, the standard was in draft status, which represented a known risk any company utilizing it. However, now that the Ethereum community has adopted the standard as final, users and investors can be confident in products from BLMP and other companies.
Upcoming For ERC-721
Many products have been awaiting launch in order to launch with ERC-721, including the recording of ownership of real estate and other valuable property, supply chain and document management, and digital identities. With the finalization of the standard, product managers can launch products without having to deal with costly updates. This finalization of the ERC-721 standard will undoubtedly prompt a number of announcements from companies about products being prepared and launched.