Driving Mass Adoption with Account Abstraction and Smart Accounts

Ittai Svidler | Co-founder, Den

The fastest multisig for onchain teams

Built on top of

Smart Accounts + Account Abstraction = Mass adoption

The biggest challenge for mass adoption

UX

EOAs

Externally Owned Accounts

EOAs

Private Keys

Private Keys

afdfd9c3d2095ef696594f6cedcae59e72dcd697e2a7521b1578140422a4f890

Private Keys

Can be lost or stolen

EOAs

Can be irreversibly drained by

malicious websites

EOAs

Can be Are often irreversibly drained by

malicious websites

EOA security concerns

lead to terrible UX

Private Keys

Can’t be shared by teams

Onboarding teams is essential

to mass adoption

Two types of accounts

1. EOAs
2. Smart Contracts

EOAs

1. Can store assets
2. Private keys
3. No programmability

Smart Contracts

1. Can store assets
2. No private keys
3. Completely programmable

Same

Different

Different

Smart Accounts

Smart Contract Wallets

Smart Account Benefits

https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/account-abstraction/

Smart Accounts: Security Rules

• Account freezing
• Account recovery
• Spending limits
• Transaction whitelists
• Multisignature authorizations

Smart Accounts: Multisignature Wallets

• Multiple people (“signers”) approve a transaction
• Signers can be removed and added
• “Teams” can safely store assets

Multisignature Wallets

What we’ve covered so far

• Challenges with EOAs
• Benefits of Smart Accounts
• Account Abstraction

We are here

The problem with Smart Contracts

The problem with Smart Contracts

Smart contracts need EOAs

to start transactions

The problem with Smart Contracts

EOA

DeFi Protocol

EOA

DeFi Protocol

Smart Contract Wallet

Paying Gas

EOA

DeFi Protocol

EOA

DeFi Protocol

Smart Contract Wallet

Need tokens to pay gas

Need to store your other assets

The goal of Account Abstraction

EOA

DeFi Protocol

EOA

DeFi Protocol

Smart Contract Wallet

EOA + Smart Contract Wallet = One Cohesive Unit

The goal of Account Abstraction

EOA

DeFi Protocol

EOA

DeFi Protocol

Smart Contract Wallet

Underlying accounts are abstracted away as one account

Account Abstraction already exists

But developers have had to

implement it themselves

Account Abstraction Implementation

​

(relayer EOA)

DeFi Protocol

Safe Multisig Wallet

Pays gas

Performs action specified by user

Reimburses EOA for cost of gas

Standardizing Account Abstraction

• Upgrading the Ethereum protocol
• Creating higher-layer infrastructure

Standardizing Account Abstraction

• Upgrading the Ethereum protocol
• Creating higher-layer infrastructure

ERC-4337

ERC-4337

• Doesn’t require changes to the Ethereum protocol
• Can be implemented on all EVM chains and L2s

Opportunities for Builders

• Build on top of Safe by writing modules
• Make your dapps ERC-4337 compatible
• Make your dapps compatible with smart accounts
• Build dev tools for dapps to support smart accounts

Building on top of Safe

• Safe Modules
• Safe Transaction Guards

Make your dapps ERC-4337 compatible

• Sponsor gas
• Allow users to pay gas in other tokens
• Batch transactions

Make your dapps support smart accounts

Add support for onchain signatures

Build dev tools for dapps to support smart accounts

Action Item for Teams and Individuals

Use smart accounts

Summarizing it all

• EOA security concerns drive poor UX
• EOAs can’t be used by teams
• Smart accounts improve security, UX, and can be used by teams
• Account abstraction further improves smart account UX
• Better UX and enabling teams will drive mass adoption

https://onchainden.com

@OnChainDen