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Is there a list of improvements that we will have in ERC223?

Are there examples of contracts?

Is there a migration path for existing ERC20 tokens?

Igor Barinov
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rstormsf
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  • rstormf: I summarized the last answer for you. see if it's more digestible now. – Tesa Jun 03 '17 at 20:52
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    When will ERC 23 be ready for users? – pmu Aug 01 '17 at 19:53
  • @rstormsf -- only saw your Jan 10 comment to my answer today. See my April 19 response / comment directed to the person who edited my original post in 2018. – Tesa Apr 19 '19 at 04:38

3 Answers3

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3 Primary improvements with ERC223

  1. Eliminates the problem of lost tokens which happens during the transfer of ERC20 tokens to a contract (when people mistakenly use the instructions for sending tokens to a wallet). ERC223 allows users to send their tokens to either wallet or contract with the same function transfer, thereby eliminating the potential for confusion and lost tokens.
  2. Allows developers to handle incoming token transactions, and reject non-supported tokens (not possible with ERC20)
  3. Energy savings. The transfer of ERC223 tokens to a contract is a one step process rather than 2 step process (for ERC20), and this means 2 times less gas and no extra blockchain bloating.

Switching from ERC20 to ERC223

ERC223 tokens are backwards compatible with ERC20 tokens. It means that ERC223 supports every ERC20 functionality and contracts or services working with ERC20 tokens will work with ERC223 tokens correctly.

Sources: https://github.com/Dexaran/ERC23-tokens/tree/Recommended#erc23-token-standard (ERC23 and 223 are the same thing). To read the full discussion about ERC20 and ERC223, follow this link: https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/223

maxkoryukov
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Tesa
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    I read it, but I was looking for more consolidated answer that will summarize this thread – rstormsf Jun 03 '17 at 19:53
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    Why ERC23 and EIP223 - what's going on with the numbers here? I like you being inquisitive, join us at http://asc.ai - exactly your type of people. – Mars Robertson Jun 27 '17 at 14:41
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    @MichalStefanow - I am not familiar with the ERC / EIP number assignment protocol for Ethereum, but found a little clue on this reddit thread - http://bit.ly/2rXWpVP - where Nick Johnston said to Dexaran: "Please stop calling it ERC23. ERCs and EIPs are assigned numbers by the editors, and your proposal hasn't been assigned one yet; you can't just pick one that appears to be unused. If you want to give it a number, it should be 223, its issue number." For anyone here unfamiliar with ERC and EIP: ERC stands for Ethereum Request for Comments and EIP stands for Ethereum Improvement Proposal. – Tesa Jun 27 '17 at 15:01
  • There are number of ERC223 tokens that are not backwards compatible. @Tesa maybe you should update your answer. ERC223 require contracts to have fallback functions which breaks ERC20 compatibility – rstormsf Jan 30 '19 at 21:47
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    @maxkoryukov - Just now seeing the comment by rstormsf. I don't believe that the backward compatibility comment was in my original post. Did you add that when you edited? If so could you address the Jan 30 comment above? I have not been tracking what's happening with ERC223 for nearly two years, so I don't feel comfortable making edits to this post. – Tesa Apr 19 '19 at 04:36
  • Actually, it's been a little mess since ERC223 is quite vague in terms of backwards compatibility. I've seen both - backwards compatible and incompatible tokens. Anyway, ERC777 is the future – rstormsf Apr 27 '19 at 08:29
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Problems of ERC20 that ERC223 will solve:

  1. Impossibility of handling incoming transactions in receiver contract.
  2. Tokens could be sent to contract that is not designed to work with tokens without handling and potentially could be lost. At least $72000 are lost at the moment. This problem is described here.
  3. Token-transactions should match Ethereum ideology of uniformity. When a user needs to transfer his funds, he must always perform transfer. Doesn't matter is user depositing in contract or sending to an externally owned account.

ERC223 token transaction costs 2 times less than approve then transferFrom of original ERC20.

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There is a very nice explanation on https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Feh5sP6oQL1-1NHi-X1dbgT3ch2WdhbXRevDN681Jv4

In case the doc goes bust, let me summarize here. Technically, there are two different ways to deposit ERC20 tokens to a contract: 1. transfer 2. approve + transferFrom

If you use the 1 step transfer function to a contract, the receiver contract can't reject/recognize the transaction. So, essentially the tokens get lost in a sink. Sending to a wallet using transfer is fine.

Achow
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