The Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting the development of Ethereum and related technologies, is set to implement significant updates to the ERC-4337 account abstraction standard, aiming to reduce gas consumption, particularly on Layer 2 networks.
On January 10th, the Ethereum Foundation previewed radical changes to the ERC-4337 standard concerning account abstraction, also known as smart accounts. Developer John Rising shared insights from nine months of usage of ERC-4337’s new version 0.7, noting the most substantial change is the requirement to specify five gas values instead of one for the complex account abstraction transactions.
Rising explained that multiple gas values must be specified to account for the fact that a smart account can perform computations while its signature is being checked. This change is expected to result in more accurate gas estimations and reduced gas costs, especially on Layer 2 networks.
The 0.7 version’s primary benefit for users will be reduced gas fees, achieved by using tricks to make transaction data usage more efficient, which will particularly help Layer 2 networks. Additionally, a 10% penalty will be deducted from any unused gas during a transaction, preventing applications from setting unnecessarily high gas limits.
Account abstraction allows accounts to have programmable logic and rules, enabling new use cases that simple accounts cannot support. Initially proposed by Vitalik Buterin and other developers in September 2021, smart accounts transform passive and static Ethereum accounts into active and programmable ones. While the Ethereum Foundation has not announced a release date for ERC-4337’s v0.7, the commencement of security audits suggests the new version may be published soon.