Account Abstraction Overview

Introduction to Account Abstraction and sample use cases to consider.

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Helpful links

How to deploy the Gas Manager API

How to deploy the Bundler API

What is Account Abstraction?

Traditional key-management methods such as seed phrases, browser extensions, and hardware wallets present significant barriers to entry for the average person. Crypto should be so easy to use so that most users don’t know they are using crypto at all, but are able to reap its benefits.

Account Abstraction holds the potential to greatly enhance user experience by providing features such as web2-style sign-in, key-less wallet management, and wallet recovery. Despite being a long-held dream of the crypto community, the technical difficulties associated with Account Abstraction have hindered progress. However, post-merge and recent incidents of multiple custodians' rug pulls indicate that the community is now prepared to tackle this challenge. At Alchemy, we are committed to realizing this potential through infrastructure products that facilitate the development of self-custodial UX.

In technical terms, Account Abstraction allows developers to design customizable "smart accounts" or programmable wallets by transferring the responsibility of signing transactions from wallets to smart contract accounts. With Account Abstraction, the functionality of an account can be extended beyond simple balance transfers to include more complex interactions with the blockchain. This can include the ability to execute smart contract code, trigger events, and manage state transitions.

Why is Account Abstraction useful?

Overall, Account Abstraction presents increased opportunities for developers of decentralized applications and wallets to innovate and improve user experience.

  • 🔏 Customizable security protocols - facilitated by Account Abstraction, users can establish their own flexible security rules
  • 🔑 Account recovery in the event of key loss - account security can be shared amongst trusted entities or devices
  • ⛽ Sponsored gas costs - users can execute payments for others' gas costs or delegate payment to a third-party
  • 📦 Batched transactions - simultaneous approval and execution of a swap are possible

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