This is critique that we definitely need to consider. We consider the way that our ICP ledger handles tokens a way well aligned with how the IC works. It’s sort of an implicit standard. However, there is indeed no explicit token standard and others have come up with standards that are closer to ERC-20. Those standards are motivated by the similarity to what people know from the EVM universe, but have their own issues.
We are currently also thinking of how to make our ledger support an ERC-20-like interface in addition.
Overall, I agree that we should consider defining an explicit token standard to avoid further fragmentation of the market and give people a clear starting point when launching their own tokens. To my knowledge, a working group for a token standard will be formed.
In a later release (Carbon), as also mentioned in a post above, we plan to enable atomic swaps to better enable DeFi.
I think it might also be good to review the vanilla NNS token standard used for ICP.
Apparently, the upcoming SNS will also use that same standard.
It’s definitely a confusing landscape… I have a feeling a lot of projects have been holding off on tokenizing because they don’t know what standard they should commit to.
Sure, I have a lot of private notes and I’ve done 8 or so interviews with token standard creators. I’m still in the process but here’s a checkpointed doc if you want to take a brief look or leave some comments!