Issue #7 — ERC 666, The Address of the Beast

Ever wondered how standards on the blockchain are created? especially when you hear or see the words, ERC-20, BEP-20, ERC-721?

These standards are defined openly through a consensus referred to as Improvement Proposals. One of the dominant blockchain networks Ethereum has an open Ethereum Improvement Proposal or EIP for short where these standards are deliberated.

After deliberation, the proposal goes through several stages, and a consensus reached to globally accept it.

NFTs or Non-Fungible tokens were created by an EIP named EIP-721. This proposal has pioneered the NFT boom and generated over $17 billion in 2021. With projects like CryptoPunks, BoredApes, Azuki at the forefront

Thus it is no surprise that since these proposals are defined by their numbers, one would expect that a EIP-666 would exist. Shockingly so, an EIP-666 didn't exist until few days ago. Unlike the EIP-721 which drafted since January 2018, 666 a lower number was only proposed recently.

EIP 666 (Proposal March 20, 2022) ?

So what does the EIP-666 propose?

EIP-666 want's to propose a permanent address for Beelzebub's Beast on the Ethereum Blockchain to be 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000029A.

0x000000000000000000000000000000000000029A is the hexadecimal equivalent of the number 666, which implies that this address will be needed for the continued operation of the Ethereum network in the End Times given that a pre-filled address for 666 has already been proposed and adopted on the Ethereum blockchain network.

Challenges of EIP-666?

As thoughtful as the EIP sounds, there are a lot of challenges with the proposal, regarding verifiability of claims, origin of living standard and solid known reference to the article.

In the rationale above, Github user @Pandapip1 argues whether the hash of the number was already known before hand, as the only reference we have is the one from John of Patmos in the book of Revelations 13.

According to the EIP definition standard, An author of an EIP needs a provable identity as a reference, however in this current EIP, there is no associated author and a blunder was made in the name of Beelzebub where (@????-??????) should have been ?????? ??????

Transactions on a blockchain are immutable. As such every standard must try to over-qualify the need for information and data required to enforce a transaction. The current EIP-666 specification lacks a proper way to give the beast access to the address which makes it open to exploitation and hacks.

So at this point it's safe to say there is no accepted specification for the EIP-666, as the current proposal lacks enough information, reference and motivation to make a solid case for why we should have a globally adopted EIP-666 standard on the blockchain.

Let me know what you think of this in the comments. And just in case you missed it. I held a talk at the Opensource Community Africa Festival last month in lagos, and in part of my talk I also give an overview of how the EIP-721 shaped what we know today as NFTs.