Crypto education: What are BIP and EIP? Is there any difference?

Crypto development is fast-paced, Satoshi—at one point in time, didn't have the time to convince a critic, dismissive of his vision.

It was hard. 

He was acting solo, spearheading a revolution before melting into the interwebs.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are leaders in their respective categories because of the efforts from the wider community.

As public ledgers, developments are forwarded as proposals. 

They are the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal in Bitcoin and the Ethereum Improvement Proposal in Ethereum. 

Other altcoins adopted the same naming system.

As per our example, short for BIP and EIP, they outline the technical specification on improving the underlying protocol. They are a standard way of community in public ledgers which has no formal structures.

Since Bitcoin and Ethereum—and by extension, any other public ledger -- are governed by the community, and in mutual consent, the proposal's author submits details to the community. 

Once the proposal is vetted, it can either be endorsed or rejected. The improvement proposal will outline its advantages and disadvantages. 

If approved by the majority, it shall be merged and implemented into the protocol through a hard fork or a soft fork.