A Primer on ERC-4337 w/ Mikko Ohtamaa

This week (07/03/23) I had the pleasure of co-hosting a Twitter Space with Mikko Ohtamaa regarding an exciting new development in the crypto space, ERC-4337: Account Abstraction.

Link: https://tinyurl.com/4z4b3pbn

This ground-breaking feature was created to provide individuals with another account option – which is also more user-friendly – than the traditional External Owned Account (EOA) and Contract Accounts (CA) currently available on the Ethereum blockchain.

For those not already in the know…

EOAs
These account holders are given a pair of public and private keys. The public keys allow others to pay crypto into the account. The private keys are solely for the account owner to make transactions.

Should a user lose their private keys, this in turn results in them losing access to their account as there is no recovery process available. Hacking also poses a real threat to EOA holders, given the individual with the private key has full control of the account.

CAs
These “smart contracts” are controlled by code, not private keys. The downside of these are that CAs are not built to initiate transactions, so an EOA is still needed to send a “message” or “instruction” to the CA in order for it to make a transaction on its own.

ERC-4337: Account Abstraction

This is therefore an exciting new Ethereum blockchain development as it offers a new account option which merges both EOAs and CAs. Using the best of both accounts means individuals can input safety mechanisms such as:

• A social recovery system – multiple people have their own key for an account, so any one of these individuals could return an account to its owner should the latter lose access.
• “multisig wallets” – multiple parties are required to sign off on transactions.

While the above mechanisms are currently possible on CAs alone, these accounts have the added convolution of needing an EOA to initiate all transactions.

Account Abstraction provides a game-changing solution to this, which could enhance the way people interact with crypto currency on a day-to-day basis.

Listen to our full conversation: https://tinyurl.com/4z4b3pbn