EIP 1167 entered “last call” status yesterday and is open for comments for the next two weeks before it is finalized. This Ethereum Improvement Proposal allows any number of cloned contracts to redirect calls and gas fees more cheaply and with fewer side effects than is currently possible.
As of Thursday, EIP 1167: Minimal Proxy Contract[1], created by Peter Murray[2], Nate Welch[3], and Joe Messerman,[4] entered "last call." The Ethereum Improvement Proposal[5] is open for comment[6] for the next two weeks, after which time, assuming everything goes well, the code will be considered finalized. If it is rejected by the community, the EIP will re-enter draft status.
The proposed standard applies to the functionality of cloned contracts and is intended to reduce gas prices in cloned contracts. Specifically, EIP 1167 allows any number of cloned contracts to redirect calls to one known address (known as the master contract), and for users to trust that the master contract will behave in the same manner as the redirecting contracts. The trustworthiness of the code hinges on its immutability: Once deployed on a master contract, the code cannot be changed and the master contract is irreplaceable. If the master contract self-destructs, all cloned contracts will cease working.
The reliance of the cloned contracts on the master contract and the master contract's immutability may foster user trust, but it's also a central weakness. You may remember the Parity multisig fiasco[7]. Though this was not a case of cloned contracts, it does illustrate the vulnerability inherent to reliance on a central contract. All of Parity's multisig wallets linked back to one library contract, but there was a vulnerability that led to
