Universal Ethereum Addresses: Small Tweak, Big Impact

The team at Wonderland has proposed a universal address format for the Ethereum ecosystem – one that includes an explicit network tag (Ethereum Mainnet, Arbitrum, Optimism, etc.) directly in the address.

Frankly, it’s long overdue. Anyone who works with crypto in practice knows how often this problem comes up – and how much of a headache it causes.

Take centralized exchanges, for example. They’re so overwhelmed by support requests to recover tokens sent via the wrong chain that they've started charging outrageous fees just to get your money back.

OTC swap services like ours face the same issue. At rabbit.io, we know how frustrating it is for users to realize they accidentally sent funds to the right address… but on the wrong chain. And it's an easy mistake to make – since addresses often look exactly the same across chains.

This proposal from Wonderland is a great start. But ideally, I’d like to see this approach extended beyond Ethereum – at least to other EVM chains like BNB Chain, Rootstock, Avalanche C-Chain, and so on.

And honestly, it would be wonderful if more networks adopted a similar system – a clear visual marker in the address that shows which chain it belongs to. After all, duplicate addresses aren’t just an Ethereum thing. Even Bitcoin forks can have overlapping formats.

Yes, I fully support Wonderland’s initiative. It’s a rare kind of crypto innovation – one that actually improves usability.