Ethereum launches ERC-4337 “smart accounts”

Ethereum developer Yoav Weiss announced ERC-4337 (Smart Accounts) at WalletCon in Denver, Colorado. March 1st.

ERC-4337 (formerly EIP-4337) is also known as Account Abstraction. It provides the foundation for various features such as account recovery and group access wallets. Other possible applications include bundling and sponsored deals to reduce transaction fees.

It also allows the platform to provide cryptographic services without the need for users to set up traditional wallets and manually store seed phrases and private keys. The account abstraction is just as secure as a self-managed crypto wallet because it stores keys locally in your hardware security module (HSM) instead of in a service provider.

ERC-4337 was added to Ethereum through a smart contract that was introduced without forking the entire blockchain.of Associated smart contract It rolled out on February 28th, hours before the feature was officially announced.

This feature can also be deployed on EVM-compatible blockchains such as BNB Smart Chain (BNB), Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche (AVAX).

ERC-4337 was approved by Visa last December. The company saw the account abstraction as a way for users to automatically schedule cryptocurrency payments.

Other, broader Ethereum upgrades are also in the works. The blockchain is preparing for a Shanghai upgrade so that validators can withdraw their staked ETH. This feature will be enabled on Testnet this week and will be fully deployed later this month.