We can’t onboard the first billion people to
#web3 if we rely on users never losing their private keys or having to pay for gas.
Many believe Account Abstraction will be the next big thing for
#Ethereum and solve these problems. But what is AA & why should you care? Let’s break it down, imagine a world where you can:
- Recover your funds if your private key is lost
- Interact with web3 apps without paying for gas
- Have others manage your funds based on rules that you define straight from your wallet
All of this is what AA promises to do, but why haven’t today’s wallets adopted these functionalities? To answer this we have to first explain that there are 2 different types of accounts on Ethereum: Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) &
#SmartContract Accounts (SCs)
EOAs (e.g. MetaMask & Ledger) are commonly used to interact with
#blockchains, and are controlled by a private keys linked to a specific address. They’re free to generate and can be reused on all EVM chains with the same address, providing a natural interoperability layer for web3.
If your credit cards get lost or stolen, there’s a process you can go through to regain access to your money. However, if you lose the keys to your EOA your funds are gone forever, as there’s no way to restore access without giving someone your these keys beforehand.
This makes many use cases like letting third parties pay for your transaction fees difficult to implement. Additionally, EOAs have an extremely poor & clunky
#UX.
Smart Contract Accounts or SCs (like
Gnosis ) are controlled by code instead of a private key. Think of them like digital locks- you can program however you want! This flexibility enables exciting use cases such as social recovery, delegating the execution of transactions to third parties, etc
SCs are a major upgrade to the current web3 experience, enabling you to:
- Interact with blockchains without paying for gas
- Automate the movement of your funds without giving custody of your assets to someone else
So why is AA still not the default option in web3?
SCs have been around for a while but are only one piece of the puzzle. To leverage their true potential, SCs need access to an off-chain network that will run computation and execute transactions on behalf of the user, enabling web3 apps to fully abstract away the complexities of interacting with blockchains.
That’s where we come in: SC + Gelato = AA!
Using Gelato Automate, devs can have users automatically interact with their apps to (e.g.) buy an
#NFT if the floor price drops below a certain value. Developers can also use Gelato Relay to enable users to interact with their apps by sponsoring transactions on their behalf!
If you’re interested in learning more about Account Abstraction and how this is possible then check out this guide by Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum:
https://lnkd.in/eVjzBXUP
ERC 4337: account abstraction without Ethereum protocol changes
ERC 4337: account abstraction without Ethereum protocol changes