How everyone in Ethereum will migrate to smart accounts: Safe co-founder

An Ethereum Improvement Proposal known as EIP-7702 could accelerate the adoption of smart accounts by making it easier for existing users to upgrade their wallets, according to Safe co-founder Lukas Schor.

“EIP-7702 will be the tipping point for account abstraction,” Schor said at the Ethereum Devcon 2024 event in Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 13.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, he said that despite predictions, the widespread adoption of account abstraction or smart accounts hasn’t happened yet, mainly due to difficulties in convincing users to migrate existing wallets and a focus on onboarding new users rather than converting existing ones.

He explained that EIP-7702 would enable users to convert their existing wallets or accounts into smart accounts. 

“I think in five years, maybe earlier, every account on Ethereum will be a smart account.” 

The Ethereum Improvement Proposal proposes a new transaction type that adds a field for externally owned accounts (EOAs), enabling them to process smart features without changing their structure. It also allows wallet providers such as MetaMask to offer smart account features.

Smart accounts also solve the “wallet trilemma” by optimizing for non-custodial control, convenience, and security rather than just two of these, he said.

“If we move people to smart accounts, it will unlock everyone’s potential because they don’t need to pick and choose. They can have all three of them.”

Schor said that initial adoption would be through opt-in settings in existing wallets with a gradual progression to encourage upgrades followed by eventual widespread adoption within five years. 

He said that future development and benefits would include unified balances across chains, integration with traditional financial systems, and better interoperability between different networks such as Ethereum, Bitcoin and Solana.

Users should have “just one account on the blockchain and interact with these different networks as if they were one, and that will be enabled through smartphones.” 

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He also compared smart accounts to traditional bank accounts but with additional benefits of the blockchain, such as no centralized control and an “exit hatch” should something go wrong and users want to withdraw their funds. 

Safe Wallet, formerly known as Gnosis Wallet, has $60 billion in total value locked and 10 million accounts, according to Schor. 

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