Varun Srinivasan pfp
Varun Srinivasan
@v
If you're launching a wallet, should it be an EOA or Smart Wallet (4337)? EOAs become upgradeable with 7702 later this year, so you get the benefits of 4337 wallets and can upgrade to better standards over time. So it comes down to: upgradeable smart wallets (EOA + 7702 + 4337*) or pure smart wallets (4337 only) ?
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Varun Srinivasan pfp
Varun Srinivasan
@v
EOAs seem like the better choice if you don't need smart wallets today. You'll get nice things like gas sponsorships and passkey signers in a few months when 7702 goes live and your EOA is upgradeable to 4337. You can also keep upgrading it to newer versions of 4337 or other standards over time.
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Varun Srinivasan pfp
Varun Srinivasan
@v
The problem with EOAs is that even when upgraded with 7702, the seed phrase has root control and can override the smart wallet. If the user leaked this secret, there is no way for the smart wallet to be upgraded to prevent someone from draining it in the future. There doesn't seem to be a clean way to pause this private key while the smart wallet is active, and throwing away the private key when the wallet is created negates the benefit of upgradeability. The other problem is that your app will need to handle cases where wallets are EOAs, 4337 wallets or any arbitrary standard. This is because the user can take the seed phrase out of your wallet and change its implementation using a different wallet. 4337s are much simpler in this regard because the implementation is fixed and you know what state your users wallet is in at any time.
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Varun Srinivasan pfp
Varun Srinivasan
@v
The strongest case for picking an EOA today is because that's where most accounts in Ethereum will be a year from now. The number of active 4337 wallets today is tiny compared to EOAs. Users don't want to change wallet addresses since it can disqualify them from airdrops and its hard to transfer the long tail of assets. Wallets will be incentivized to invest in 7702-based smart wallets because that's where their users are and will keep making improvements taking advantage of the upgradeability.
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Varun Srinivasan pfp
Varun Srinivasan
@v
Overall I think you can pick either standard and do OK. It's not going to be a make or break decision for your product. That said, I'd bet on upgradeable smart wallets (EOA + 7702 + 4337*) over pure smart wallets (4337 only) if I had to make a decision. Even though the security problems with EOA + 7702 are unsolved today, a lot of smart people in wallet teams are working on this and its likely that they'll figure it out soon. It doesn't seem unsolvable, just really hard. Most importantly, the upgradeability of 7702s is a benefit that will compound over time as we come up with better standards for wallets.
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Varun Srinivasan pfp
Varun Srinivasan
@v
h/t to @gakonst @wilsoncusack @henri @noam and many other folks that have helped think through this.
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shazow pfp
shazow
@shazow.eth
Some missing nuances: 1. 4337 wallets are also upgradeable, even moreso than EOA+7702 (permanently vs transiently) 2. 4337 is not the only smart wallet design available, right? For example, Safe Wallet works differently but supports 4337 via module. 3. Part of the upgrade path from EOA (with 7702) is single-transaction migrations to smart wallets (which support other signature types that are more post-quantum resistant), rather than staying with an EOA and using 7702 whenever we feel like. 4. It's unclear whether we'll get a permanent upgrade-EOA opcode/feature in the future, so for now 7702 is just an escape hatch out of EOAs, so feels wrong to double-down on EOAs?
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Varun Srinivasan pfp
Varun Srinivasan
@v
good points, some thoughts: 1. is this a well trodden path today? haven't been able to find anyone who is actually doing this. suspect there are dragons lurking that no one will discover vs 7702 is going to have the upgrade path tested thoroughly. 2. Any good reason to use Safe Wallet over 4337 today? 3. wdym by single transaction migrations? 4. unclear, but i suspect its more likely it happens than it doesnt
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shazow pfp
shazow
@shazow.eth
1+2. My feel is that it's incorrect to focus on 4337 as a wallet rather than a feature/compatibility. For example, @worldcoin has 10+ million Safe instances in production. @daimo I believe uses 4337, don't know what their contract is based on off hand, maybe @dcposch.eth can comment? 3. It's logistically very hard/painful to migrate EOAs rn, requires O(N) transactions for N assets. 7702 would allow for setting up a single batch transaction. 4. I'm not confident, 7702 is the watered down result of a few very old proposals (eg 3074). Turned out there's a lot of technical issues with permanently changing account types/content, but these are avoided if it's a transient mid-transaction change. Same reason we ended up with SELFDESTRUCT being nerfed to transient-only rather than full removal. It's not impossible, but my gut says closer to 20% chance.
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