An unofficial and experimental Ethereum standard dubbed “ERC-404” — proposed to become a hybrid of fungible and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) — is “working around the clock” to submit an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), according to one of its inventors.

Created by pseudonymous developers known as “ctrl” and “Acme” under a project called Pandora, the standard mixes the tech behindERC-20fungible tokens with ERC-721, which is used for one-of-one tokens —such as the NFTsin the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection.

However, despite the moniker, ERC-404 hasn’t been audited, and the “ERC” is in name only.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, ERC-404 developer ctrl said getting an approved EIP is “one of the more bureaucratic things you can do.”

“It’s a lengthy process, there’s a lot of politics [...] Usually, the process takes a couple of weeks.”

Ctrl was tight-lipped on who was working on the proposal, only that they have “had success with this before” and were “in a very good spot” to soon submit an EIP.

ERC-404 aims to bind ERC-721 NFTs to the ERC-20 tokens, allowing for what some havedescribedasfractionalized NFTs, allowing multiple wallets to each own a portion of a single NFT — such as a BAYC NFT — and use that portion to trade with or stake for loans.

The ERC-404 GitHubpagesays the standard is experimental and the two standards it aims to mix “are not designed to be mixed,” but the project aims to fuse them in “as robust a manner as possible while minimizing tradeoffs.”

The disclaimer hasn’t stopped debate over the safety of the project. A Feb. 8 X post from a developer going by “quit” claimed NFTs that use the ERC-404 standard are possibly vulnerable to theft by ERC-404 tokenholders if the NFT was deposited in a lending protocol not correctly configured for ERC-404.

They claimed a wrongly configured protocol may not differentiate between an ERC-404 NFT and ERC-404 tokens, allowing token depositors towithdraw an NFTthey don’t own.

Ctrl brushed off the concerns raised in the post when speaking to Cointelegraph, arguing that quit “made a contract that uses ERC-404 improperly,” and because of that, “there’s a vulnerability.”

“That’s like me posting a picture of a car and explaining how I would break into it because the door is unlocked.”

Crypto wallets from exchanges Binance and OKX have announced support for ERC-404, with ctrl adding that “something would have been exploited already” if quit’s concern was an issue. He said Pandora was auditing a “more mature iteration of the standard which addresses integration.”

Pandora — the first ERC-404 token launched on Feb. 5 by the project — has seen gains of over 1,850% in four days and a market cap of nearly $293 million,accordingto CoinGecko.

CoinGecko lists 12 other projects that have launched using ERC-404, including a frog-themed copy of the DeGods NFT collection that’s pulled in a market capitalization of nearly $30 million and another which is a collection of ERC-404-basedNFT pet rocks.