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William Entriken
Portrait shot of William Entriken
Born
William Entriken
Other namesWill, Fulldecent
EducationBennett S. LeBow College of Business, Drexel University M.S. in Finance, MBA in Investment Management
Occupation(s)Solutions Architect, Civic Hacker, Cybersecurity Specialist, Financial Analyst, General Manager
Years active2008–present
Known forPioneering the foundation of NFT eco-system
Notable workERC-721: Non-fungible Token Standard
Title
  • Lead author of ERC-721
  • Technical advisor to EY, TronDAO, Arianee
  • General Manager at Pacific Medical Training
SpouseSu Entriken
FatherBill Entriken
Websitephor.net

William "Will" Entriken (/ˈɛn.trə.kɪn/) also known by the online moniker Fulldecent, is a solutions architect, cybersecurity specialist, financial analyst, general manager, and civic hacker best known for his contributions in blockchain technology and open sourced solutions. He is recognized as the lead author of the landmark Ethereum paper ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard,[1] published in 2018. This paper is recognized for pioneering the foundation of the digital collectibles eco-system by establishing a programming standard called "ERC-721" to create NFTs (a type of digital "deed" to prove ownership of assets) via smart contracts on Ethereum.[2] It also first formalized and defined the term Non-Fungible Token (NFT) into blockchain nomenclature[3] which was made popular by the blockchain game CryptoKitties; the CTO of that game, Dieter Shirley, is also a fellow co-author of the published paper.[4]

His contributions as a civic hacker local to his community in Philadelphia has earned him recognition including from an open source project supporting the SEPTA train system.[5] As a cybersecurity professional, he has actively collaborated with Apple, FINRA, SEC and the FBI and currently holds an active Department of Defense Security Clearance.[6]

Personal life & education

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William Entriken was born in the Greater Philadelphia area where he resides today.[7] He is married to Su Entriken, and together they run a boudoir photography studio in the Philadelphia area.[8]

Entriken earned a BS in Computer Science with Dean’s List honors from Villanova University. At Villanova he was the top scorer in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition and worked in an apprenticeship where he programmed control modules for U.S. Navy Warships.[9] He later continued his education at Drexel University, earning an M.S. in Finance and an MBA in Investment Management in 2008.[10] He is also a member of Mensa and is fluent in Mandarin with an HSK level 4 certification.[11]

Career

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Entriken is currently the general manager at Pacific Medical Training which provides online medical training.[12] His diverse career spans various roles across business, finance and technology including work as a solutions architect, a software developer at Google, a financial analyst for CDI Corp completing Mergers & Acquisitions, a consultant for Big Four's Ernest & Young, and a cybersecurity specialist collaborating with Apple and protecting retail investors' accounts with FINRA, SEC and the FBI.[13]

Civic hacker in Philadelphia

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Civic hackers are persons who essentially utilize or improve on technologies for public good, whether at local, municipal, national or international scales.[14] Entriken has been noted for his contributions as a civic hacker in the Greater Philadelphia area, focusing on projects that aim to enhance public access to data and improve government accountability.

SEPTA real-time tracking

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In 2008, Entriken developed a web application that compared the actual arrival times of SEPTA trains in Montgomery County to their scheduled times. He was quoted by NBC Philadelphia News as saying that the trains’ lateness was "every day and usually by 15 minutes or more". The application was updated in 2012 to collect real-time data for 13 SEPTA regional rail lines. While SEPTA's Chief Control Center Officer acknowledged the app as "a nice little tool", he also cautioned how tracking real-time train times was "a very delicate balancing act". Another official at SEPTA was also quoted as saying "it's good for guidance, but that it should not be your only source for train information".[15]

Philadelphia traffic court data

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In 2014, Entriken sought to investigate Philadelphia traffic court cases concerning "3111 violations". He was provided a quote of $11,200 by Xerox, the firm responsible for managing the court's data, as the cost to develop a program that could scan and identify all relevant cases within the database. In an attempt to cover this expense, Entriken initiated a Kickstarter campaign, but it ultimately fell short of its financial target.[16]

EZpass "V-Toll" disputes

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After incurring $300 in "V-toll" charges from the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 2019, Entriken developed a web application to simplify the appeals process for such charges and made it publicly available for others to use. The application fills in the necessary appeal forms automatically. "It's one line of code that works on Safari and Chrome. It took me a half hour to write. It fills in the entire five pages" he was quoted as saying in the PhillyVoice. Entriken also filed Freedom of Information Act requests to analyze V-tolls over several years but was ultimately denied access to the data.[17]

Cybersecurity

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In 2020, Inc Magazine reported that William Entriken broke a non-disclosure agreement to bring attention to a cybersecurity vulnerability he allegedly discovered in 2008 at stock-trading firm Zecco (now TradeKing). Entriken claimed unauthorized trades could be initiated from accounts without the proper credentials via certain URLs. He publicly stated the firm did not address the vulnerability despite him reporting the issue.[18]

Blockchain

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Entriken has participated in the authorship of five papers known as EIP's (Ethereum Improvement Proposals), also called "ERCs" (Ethereum Request for Comment). He is most notably the lead author of ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard that pioneered the foundation of NFTs and catalyzed the digital collectibles eco-system.[19] Entriken is also among only two other authors including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to have successfully published an EIP in the "Informational" category via EIP-2228 and EIP-2982, respectively.[20] Through EIP-2228, Entriken proposed a formalization of the term "Mainnet" in regards to Ethereum's "network ID 1 and chain ID 1" that had been referred to inconsistently by other names such main chain, main-net, main net and Ethereum's Main Network.[21]

As a public speaker, he has taken the stage at conferences such as NFT.nyc, NFT Tallinn and Chain76 (which he hosted).[22]

Civic advocacy

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When the United Kingdom announced plans of introducing NFTs a year prior, in response Entriken publicly offered commentary around the tax considerations involved.[23]

In regards to environmental concerns, Entriken has advocated for the cryptocurrency industry to address its carbon footprint issues to avert going down a "destructive" path.[24] According to the New Scientist, he expressed the need at one point for the Ethereum blockchain to switch to a consensus protocol that is much less energy demanding, known as "Proof of stake" and stated that "Proof of work should be illegal" considering its significant energy consumption.[25]

Entriken has publicly insisted that NFT use-cases ought to pivot more towards identity and healthcare.[26]

He has hosted a conference called Chain76 that aims to align NFT use-cases and solutions to the pharmaceutical industry.[27]

Book author

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In 2021, Entriken self-published Nineteen Eighty-Five which is a modernized translation of the classic 1984 dystopian novel. Instead of authoring the rendition of the novel directly, Entriken authored a Perl script program to automatically replace certain keywords in the original novel with his choice of relevant modern substitutions in order to parallel the storyline with contemporary references. The book is available internationally, however, it is not available in the US due to copyright reasons.[28]

ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard

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ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard is a paper codifying a standard for non-fungible tokens, referred to as "ERC-721" on Ethereum, published in 2018 by lead author William Entriken and co-authors Dieter Shirley, Jacob Evans, Nastassia Sachs.[29] It is regarded as a foundational and pioneering work that formally introduced the NFT concept, the word "Non-fungible Token" and catalyzed the multi-billion dollar digital collectibles eco-system.[30] "ERC" stands for Ethereum Request for Comment and is part of a series of peer-reviewed papers published by the Ethereum community; "721" is an arbitrary numbered assigned to this particular ERC. For clarification regarding the terminology, the term "ERC-721" may have (4) common references when used:

(1) The published paper: The peer-reviewed published paper from 2018 whose full title is ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard.[31]

(2) The GitHub thread: The conversational threads on GitHub during the ERC drafting process prior to the paper's publication, which are still viewable today. It's important to note that, similarly to early drafts of literary works, these threads may contain ideas and discussions that did not make it into the final standard or published paper.[32]

(3) The codified standard itself: the actual set of rules and instructions, like a recipe, that explain how smart contracts should work to effectively create NFTs, which to written in the published paper.[33]

(4) NFTs compliant with the ERC-721 standard: Any non-fungible tokens that are made to be compliant with the ERC-721 standard.[34]

Pioneering the concept and definition of "NFT"

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Actual use of the word "NFT" was not known prior to ERC-721 for NFT-related projects.[35] The decision to formally include the word choice of NFT / Non-fungible Token in the final publication was made after Entriken held a vote among the stakeholders involved for the possible words they believed would be best to use in reference to the concept.[36] The word deed was considered among other alternatives such as distinguishable asset, title, token, asset, equity, ticket.[29] ERC-721 is recognized for formalizing the NFT concept that had been explored in prior use cases but never in a standardized format.

The general purpose of NFT's in the paper centers around ownership of both physical and digital things.

NFTs can represent ownership over digital or physical assets.

— Entriken et al, ERC-721:NFT Standard

Non-fungibility's uniqueness aspect is emphasized and illustrated for its importance around the property of effective ownership.

In general, all houses are distinct and no two kittens are alike. NFTs are distinguishable and you must track the ownership of each one separately.

— Entriken et al, ERC-721:NFT Standard

Alongside the conceptual underpinnings, the technical specification of non-fungibility in the ERC-721 standard is recognized as being defined through a token ID and contract address.[37]

ERC-721’s initial development with Dieter Shirley

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Dieter Shirley, the CTO of Dapper Labs responsible for the blockchain game CryptoKitties, in 2017 initiated the creation of ERC-721 through a first draft proposal.[38] He posted the problem of tracking non-fungibles along with a solution serving as an alternative standard to ERC-20 (a fungible token standard and the primary one used at the time).[39] He has stated that his efforts were directly inspired of the ERC-20 token and generative art project CryptoPunks.[40]

Conversations about non-fungibility and the token standard issue emerged internally within Dapper Labs that motivated Shirley's initial efforts to create the first draft of ERC-721.

Everyone kept talking about ERC-20 and like ‘how do we make the CryptoKitties ERC-20 compatible’. I'm like ‘you guys are crazy, they're non-fungible, we can't make them work with the ERC-20’. And then I wrote ERC-721 first draft … then ultimately it was a community product when it was finalized,

— Dieter Shirley, ZK Podcast: CryptoKitties, Dapper Labs and Flow with Dieter Shirley

According to Dieter, the ERC process for the standard began with very little fanfare and had limited interest initially, but after the launch of CryptoKitties to widespread acclaim in 2017, it began sparking significantly more attention, including ones critical of it.[39]

Entriken's emergence as lead author

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Entriken says he reached out to Dieter Shirley to discuss ERC-721 when he learned about it online while working on his own project Su Squares, but he was occupied with CryptoKitties as it was experiencing immense growth,[41]

He [Dieter] started this project and he had two things going on. He had CryptoKitties and the specification [paper] of telling other people how to make NFTs. And these are both cool projects and one of them kind of got a lot of attention and required a lot of work, quickly. That was CryptoKitties, it basically blocked Ethereum network... just so many people were using it, it literally just took down Ethereum... so that kind of became his focus and ERC-721 was not.

— William Entriken, William Entriken, Lead Author of ERC-721 - NFT Standard, Talks to NFT Prodigy Benyamin Ahmed

According to Entriken, he himself had not participated in a blockchain project prior, and he entered the ERC process during a time where there was significant lack of consensus and competing solutions for how non-fungible tokens should be standardized on Ethereum.[42] He believed having separate solutions instead of a unified one early on would set a weak foundation not conducive for adoption.[43] Thus, upon beginning his work to improve the standard, he brokered consensus between different competing parties to coordinate solely on ERC-721 and become nominated as the lead author. Ultimately, the results of the collaborative efforts to iterate and improve the standard with community consensus lead to the publication of ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard in 2018.[42]

References

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  1. ^
    • Butler, Michael (2021-06-03). "This local technologist made Philly the birthplace of the leading NFT standard". Technical.ly. Retrieved 2023-11-20.
    • "Six LeBow Alumni Named to Drexel Magazine's 2022 40 Under 40". www.lebow.drexel.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-20.
    • "ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard". Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Retrieved 2023-11-21.
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  9. ^ "William Entriken, portfolio". phor.net. Retrieved 2023-11-20.
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  16. ^ Reyes, Juliana (2014-07-11). "Why does this data from our troubled Philadelphia Traffic Court cost $11K?". Technical.ly. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  17. ^ "You may have racked up big E-ZPass fines and not even know it". PhillyVoice. 2019-09-10. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
  18. ^ Mann, Sonya (27 April 2017). "A Developer Broke His Decade-Long Silence to Expose This Bank's Cybersecurity Cover-Up". Inc Magazine. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
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  20. ^ "Informational". Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
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  23. ^ Sparkle, Matthew (5 April 2022). "Why is the UK government getting into NFTs and is it a good idea?". New Scientist. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
  24. ^ "How a new generation of NFTs plans to cut its carbon footprint". Fortune. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  25. ^ Sparkles, Matthew. "NFT developers say cryptocurrencies must tackle their carbon emissions". New Scientist. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  26. ^ Butler, Michael (2021-06-03). "This local technologist made Philly the birthplace of the leading NFT standard". Technical.ly. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
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  29. ^ a b "ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard". Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
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  32. ^ "ERC: Non-fungible Token Standard · Issue #721 · ethereum/EIPs". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-11-26.
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  34. ^ Patel, Nilay (2022-02-22). "Can the law keep up with crypto?". The Verge. Retrieved 2023-11-26.
  35. ^ Upson, Sandra. "The 10,000 Faces That Launched an NFT Revolution". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
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  39. ^ a b ZK Podcast: CryptoKitties, Dapper Labs and Flow with Dieter Shirley, 30 September 2020, retrieved 2023-11-25
  40. ^ Jimbo Chats w/ ERC721 Creator Dieter Shirley About the Technical Origins and Future of Web3, 18 January 2023, retrieved 2023-11-22
  41. ^
  42. ^ a b The Genius Behind ERC-721: William Entriken on NFTs and Blockchain, 28 September 2023, retrieved 2023-11-22
  43. ^ William Entriken (5 December 2023), Community Service Hour, retrieved 2024-01-10
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