What exactly is ERC-8021 that developers are hotly discussing?

Author: Zun Source: X, @Zun2025 Translator: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance

If you look at Twitter, you will find that most developers are discussing ERC-8021. What is it exactly? In simple terms, it is essentially Ethereum's native recommendation mechanism.

Whenever we use any decentralized application, we are essentially executing a transaction.

For example, suppose I developed a DApp on Base, and the front end shows that there are 100,000 daily active users, but Base itself cannot verify how much traffic this DApp has actually brought to it.

But now with ERC-8021, the Base public chain can track which DApp the traffic comes from, how much traffic it has brought, and it can also incentivize developers in this way.

How does it work from a technical perspective?

1. Developers register their developer code in the smart contract registry and link it to their personal wallet address. For example, I registered base-miniapp.
2. After that, whenever a user executes any transaction on the developer's DApp, the developer will attach their developer code at the end of the transaction. In other words, the user will submit the transaction along with the developer code to the blockchain.
3. The platform can track the source of activities and ultimately allocate earnings to developers based on the transaction volume they generate.

This inspiration actually comes from Hyperliquid, which can be considered a pioneering project.