# ERC-3770: Chain-specific addresses Source: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-3770 Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/ERC-3770-Chain-specific-addresses?index=0x655c87d93ebdbaefe7ccb1157e7a8474bfd8d26d38784049a38799def6051f6823852b88 Submitted by macbudkowski.eth on 2023-11-21 UTC, 2 upvotes, 0 comments ## Summary ERC-3770 is a draft Ethereum standard that proposes prefixing chain-specific addresses with a human-readable chain short name, such as "shortName:address". The proposal states that as EVM-compatible chains grow, the same address may refer to an externally owned account on one chain and a smart contract on another, which could cause users to lose funds through human error, for example by sending funds to a smart contract wallet address not deployed on that chain. It notes that EIP-155 chain IDs could serve as the prefix but were designed for developer interoperability rather than display to users. The short name must come from the ethereum-lists chains repository, and the address must be ERC-55 compatible. The draft also warns that similar-looking chain short names could confuse users. ## Article ⚠️ Draft Standards Track: ERC Prepending chain-specific addresses with a human-readable chain identifier Authors Lukas Schor (@lukasschor), Richard Meissner (@rmeissner), Pedro Gomes (@pedrouid), ligi Created 2021-08-26 Discussion Link https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/chain-specific-addresses/6449 Table of Contents Abstract Motivation Specification Syntax Semantics Examples Rationale Backwards Compatibility Security Considerations Copyright Abstract ERC-3770 introduces a new address standard to be adapted by wallets and dApps to display chain-specific addresses by using a human-readable 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 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 Similar looking chain short names can be used to confuse users. Copyright Copyright and related rights waived via CC0. Citation Please cite this document as: Lukas Schor (@lukasschor), Richard Meissner (@rmeissner), Pedro Gomes (@pedrouid), ligi , "ERC-3770: Chain-specific addresses [DRAFT]," Ethereum Improvement Proposals, no. 3770, August 2021. Available: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-3770.