Argent x Smurfs Society

Account abstraction has been gaining significant attention lately, and for good reason - it has the potential to simplify user experience and drive crypto adoption to the masses.

We are partnering with The Smurfs’ Society and Hacker Smurf to celebrate Account Abstraction in a giveaway!

For a chance to win ONE exclusive Smurfs’ Society Legendary NFT, sign-up with the steps below:

1. Like & retweet this tweet
2. Follow @argentHQ and @SmurfsSociety on Twitter
3. Submit your Argent username and Twitter username to our Typeform and answer the short quiz on Account Abstraction. Answers to the quiz can be found below. If you don’t have an Argent username yet, download here for iOS/Android.

We'll be picking ONE winner to win ONE Smurfs' Society Legenday NFT. The deadline to enter is Friday, 14th April at 16:00 UTC.

The full contest rules are here.

But WTF is account abstraction ?

There are two types of accounts on Ethereum:

1. Externally Owned Accounts (EOA).
2. Contract Accounts (CA).

At the onset of Ethereum, it was considered that Contract Accounts would correspond to smart contracts and protocols, while EOAs would be owned by users, externally to the blockchain.

The state of the blockchain can only be modified through transactions. This trigger must come from something external to the blockchain. Hence, on Ethereum, every transaction must be initiated from an EOA. That means when a transaction is executed by the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), the account signing the transaction must be an EOA, and the corresponding account must pay a fee to the miner for the execution of the entire transaction.

But what if we could turn user accounts into smart contracts and make them programmable? Each user could then have an account that is adapted to their needs, unlocking endless possibilities...

The benefits of account abstraction

Turning users' accounts into smart contracts opens up a world of possibilities, all of which improve the Web3 user experience. Here are a few of the features we are working on at Argent:

1. Multicall: bundle multiple transactions into one and execute this sequence of transactions at once (e.g. approve token + swap).
2. Session keys: allow users to pre-approve the rules for interacting with a dApp so they can use it as much as they want within those rules without having to sign every single transaction.
3. Social Recovery: if you lose your private key, you can authorize a new key as the legitimate wallet owner using a recovery method that relies on your trusted contacts.
4. Paymasters: enable a dApp to pay for its users' transactions according to predefined conditions.

Native accounts abstraction and ERC-4337

As mentioned earlier, Ethereum is built around the concept of EOAs, which have the power to initiate transactions, while Contract Accounts remain second-class citizens.

This has several detrimental consequences for Account Abstraction:

1. As only EOAs can initiate transactions, Smart Wallets have come up with workarounds, typically using a Relayer that will initiate the transaction on behalf of the user. Before ERC-4337, these Relayers were operated in a centralized way.
2. Using a Smart Account, which is by definition a Smart Contract, is more expensive in gas, which can be a problem on the Ethereum mainnet.
3. As Ethereum is ruled by EOAs, most dApps do not allow for signatures from smart accounts and do not leverage account abstraction and its benefits (multicall, session keys, etc.).

ERC-4337, which was introduced in March 2023, has solved point 1 by introducing Bundlers that act as an intermediary between the Smart Account and the blockchain and can be operated by anyone in a decentralized way. Although this is a great step forward, it does not solve the remaining barriers to AA.

However, new-generation zk-rollups, such as Starknet and zkSync Era, besides drastically decreasing transaction costs, are launching with native Account Abstraction embedded, heavily inspired by ERC-4337, and making Smart Accounts first-class citizens in their design!

What is The Smurfs’ Society ?

The Smurfs’ Society is the only PFP project backed by the official Smurfs brand to build a positive, inclusive, and impactful online community. The Smurf’s Society combines its pioneering community and NFT technology to create the most immersive web3 experience around gamification, art and for-good.

Learn more about The Smurfs’ Society

Hacker Smurf is the white hat hero of the Smurfs' Society Legendary PFP Collection. As a true web3 hero, he strives for decentralisation, self-custody and Account Abstraction.