EIP-7702, which is supposed to allow externally owned accounts to briefly turn out to be sensible contract accounts, was largely the results of intense discussions amongst Ethereum builders over earlier enchancment proposals.
EIP-7702 is the most recent proposal about account abstraction on Ethereum.
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Posted Could 8, 2024 at 6:23 pm EST.
Ethereum Enchancment Proposal (EIP)-7702 has seen rising assist amongst builders, builders, and researchers lower than a day after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and three extra authors proposed it, a possible signal the EIP shall be included within the subsequent arduous fork improve.
EIP-7702 allows “flash sensible pockets accounts,” that are externally owned accounts (EOAs) that turn out to be sensible wallets, briefly for one transaction. EIP-7702, wrote Jarrod Watts, developer relations engineer at Polygon, on X is “some of the impactful adjustments Ethereum goes to have… EVER.”
EOAs are managed by their corresponding personal key held by individuals, whereas sensible contract accounts are ruled by coding logic.
The introduction of EIP-7702 comes because the Ethereum group has had ongoing conversations about essentially the most optimum path to what’s known as “account abstraction,” by which all externally owned accounts turn out to be? sensible account wallets.
EIP-3074 and EIP-4337
Particularly, the Ethereum group has been going forwards and backwards about EIP-3074 and EIP-4337, each of that are supposed to enhance Ethereum’s safety and consumer expertise.
EIP-4337, which was deployed on mainnet Ethereum in March 2023, goals to realize account abstraction “with out adjustments to the consensus layer protocol of Ethereum,” by enabling sensible contracts to behave as accounts, based on EIP-4337’s GitHub page.
Whereas deployed on mainnet for over a yr, the issue with EIP-4337 is that “EOAs are nonetheless essentially the most used kind of account by far,” Watts wrote on X.
The shortage of migration amongst present customers from EOAs to sensible contract accounts is happening for 2 causes, based on Watts: individuals don’t have a solution to convert their EOA to a wise contract account, and so they additionally undergo from “an absence of native assist by Web3 apps to attach sensible contract accounts.”
Consequently, Ethereum builders regarded to EIP-3074 to resolve these issues. In keeping with its GitHub web page, EIP-3074 permits “externally owned accounts to delegate management to a contract.” It’s meant to supply short-term performance enhancements to EOAs and act “as a stepping stone towards full [account abstraction],” stated Lukas Schor, co-founder of pockets infrastructure maker Secure, in a dialog with Unchained.
Learn Extra: EIP-3074 vs EIP-4337: Ethereum Developers Disagree on Endgame for Account Abstraction
Whereas some had been ecstatic about EIP-3074’s deliberate inclusion within the subsequent Ethereum arduous fork improve, others weren’t. In keeping with the authors of EIP-7702, EIP-3074 not solely introduces new opcodes that will don’t have any use in a world the place all customers are ultimately utilizing sensible contract wallets, but in addition results in fragmentation.
EIP-7702, which based on Schor does what EIP-3074 is making an attempt to do, however higher— specifically, bettering the present consumer expertise for these transacting onchain, in addition to being a step in the best course in direction of account abstraction together with changing all present Ethereum customers’ accounts into sensible accounts.
EIP-7702 “modifies EIP-3074 to make it leaner and extra suitable with ERC-4337…in order that we don’t find yourself with two separate [account abstraction] ecosystems,” Watts wrote on X. Per its GitHub web page, EIP-7702 has ahead compatibility with future account abstraction, as a result of “the contract code that customers would want to signal may actually be present ERC-4337 pockets code.”
As such, Schor thinks EIP-7702, regardless of its nascent standing, shall be included in Ethereum’s subsequent arduous fork improve, dubbed “Petra.” He indicated that EIP-7702 is just not solely favored by EIP-3074 proponents as a result of it solves the identical points they need similar to a greater consumer expertise for present customers, however can be “fairly preferred” by EIP 4337 proponents due to its compatibility.
EIP 7702 appears like an strategy to bettering EOAs that’s extra aligned with sensible accounts and customarily extra future proof: https://t.co/Dmx47ZTaYU
I feel it might most likely make extra sense to incorporate in Pectra than 3074
— konradkopp.eth (@abstractooor) May 7, 2024
Quantum Resistance
EIP-7702 additionally seeks to deal with the potential drawback stemming from the development of quantum computing, superpowered computer systems that depend on quantum mechanics. X.
Some Ethereum builders have turn out to be involved in regards to the chance that in 5 to 10 years, quantum computing will progress to the purpose the place it could possibly break the cryptographic algorithms known as ECDSA used to generate personal keys, compromising the safety of a blockchain community. ECDSA, an acronym for “elliptic curve digital signature algorithm,” is extensively utilized in many Ethereum-based crypto protocols to confirm digital signatures for transactions.
“The one solution to transfer away from that’s to not have ECDSA based mostly personal keys controlling consumer wallets, and that’s solved by transferring customers to sensible accounts [through EIP-7702], as a result of then you should utilize completely different cryptographic curves [and] completely different signing schemes which are a lot stronger cryptographically and are quantum resistant,” stated Schor.
