Inventory of the Smart Contract AA Wallet

Author: defioasis

Note: This article is for informational sharing only and does not endorse any projects. It is not affiliated with the mentioned projects in any financial way.

In August, the number of active accounts for multi-chain smart contract wallets (ERC-4337) reached 443,600, continuously setting a new historical high. Among them, Arbitrum accounted for 213,100, Optimism accounted for 153,500, Polygon accounted for 49,700, and Base accounted for 22,900. In August, the number of multi-chain smart contract wallet accounts accumulated over 840,000 successful transactions (UserOps), a month-on-month increase of 45.6%. Unlike July, where 96% were concentrated on Polygon, August UserOps blossomed across chains like Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, and Base. Multi-chain Paymasters represented users paying over $360,000 in UserOp Gas fees, a month-on-month increase of 742%.

(Source: https://dune.com/niftytable/account-abstraction)

The smart contract wallet was first launched by Argent. The account abstraction ERC-4337 officially established the smart account as a branch of the contract wallet. Unlike the EOA address generated by general wallets, Argent deploys a smart contract to represent the user’s address. Users can generate/recover Argent private keys through social means to sign transactions, which are then sent to the Argent relay for submission using the private key. However, the Argent relay is still an EOA address, used to call the smart contract wallet with the signed transaction. Account abstraction ERC-4337 makes a deeper division in the relay structure. In theory, anyone can create their own validation structure, which can realize transaction bundling (bundler) and Gas payment on behalf (Paymasters).

As of September 7th, the number of multi-chain smart contract wallet accounts has exceeded 778,000, with over 1.6 million transactions executed. Among them, the number of Polygon smart accounts reached 372,000, accounting for 47.7%; Base accounted for 235,000, Arbitrum accounted for 215,000, and Optimism accounted for 163,000. This article will review the most widely used multi-chain smart contract wallets currently in use.

ZeroDev Kernel

ZeroDev Kernel is the most widely deployed smart contract wallet on the major EVM networks, with over 580,000 accounts deployed across multiple chains. Users can use ZeroDev to create both custodial and non-custodial smart contract wallets or transform EOA wallets into smart contract wallets using Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS) providers. ZeroDev offers features such as Gas sponsorship, transaction batching, session keys, social recovery, automatic transactions, and multi-signature. Moreover, ZeroDev allows developers to build DIY smart contract wallet plugins to extend wallet features.

ZeroDev Kernel was recently one of the 18 projects selected for the first Ethereum Foundation Account Abstraction (AA Grant). The Kernel is open-source, has undergone an audit by Kalos (formerly Haechi Audit), and commits to auditing all developed plugins before they are launched.

Biconomy

Biconomy offers a modular SDK, introducing the smart contract wallet (SCW) as a fundamental component of the system. It’s specifically designed for building dApps socially around the ERC-4337 account abstraction. Over 40,000 smart accounts using the Biconomy SDK have been deployed across multiple chains, primarily on Polygon. The Biconomy SDK offers a Web2-like experience for dApps in a non-custodial manner, with features like social account login, creation, and recovery onboarding; Fiat On Ramp for buying or selling cryptocurrency within dApps; user Gas-free transactions with sponsors covering interaction fees; paying Gas fees with any ERC-20 Token; and custom transaction bundling, allowing users to execute multiple actions in one transaction across multiple chains.

In 2021, Biconomy raised $10.5 million from investors including Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs, Fenbushi Capital, and Huobi Ventures. They have also launched the BICO Token with a market cap of approximately $138 million. Biconomy has completed contract audits by Kawach io and Zellic for smart accounts and Paymasters.

CyberAccount

CyberAccount is a smart contract wallet launched by the decentralized social network CyberConnect. Due to its tie-in with the CYBER airdrop, CyberAccount brought significant traffic to the smart contract wallet accounts for the Polygon and Optimism networks around the end of July and the beginning of August. Adopting the Zerodev framework, over 490,000 smart contract wallet accounts have been deployed. CYBER will be used for CyberAccount price metering and Gas payments. CyberAccount encompasses four major components responsible for defining user authentication and authorization on the CyberConnect protocol; it’s compatible with ERC-4337, and has collaborated with StackUp and Pimlico to deploy internal bundling and payment solutions; works in tandem with CyberID, where part of the CyberID registration fee is refunded to CyberAccount in the form of Gas points; and organizational accounts, offering advanced account management features like multi-signature and customizable access control rules.

Between 2021–2023, CyberConnect raised $30.4 million (including public sales) from investors such as Animoca Brands, IOSG, Delphi Digital, and Protocol Labs. They have also launched the CYBER Token with a market cap of approximately $66 million. The code for CyberAccount has been made open-source.

Alchemy Account Factory

Alchemy is a Web3 development platform that aids developers in building and scaling dApps, providing various API such as Bundler and Gas Manager to help develop ERC-4337 compliant smart account wallets. Nearly 250,000 smart accounts deployed using the Alchemy API belong to Account Factory (0x94…6454), with 237,000 on Arbitrum, making it the largest smart contract wallet deployer on Arbitrum.

Between 2019–2022, Alchemy raised $545 million from investors including Coinbase Ventures, a16z, Pantera Capital, and Redpoint Ventures.

Echooo Wallet

Echooo is a smart contract wallet supported by ERC-4337 that combines MPC and AI, optimized for small screens, making it suitable for mobile users. Features include Gas optimization and an EOA+smart contract account Vault blend protected by MPC. Through collaboration with zkSync, Echooo Wallet has become the largest smart contract wallet on zkSync Era, with over 10,000 smart accounts deployed on zkSync. Additionally, over 7,300 smart accounts are deployed on Polygon, with multi-chain Gas payment fees exceeding $13,000.

Echooo Wallet secured $15 million in funding in July of this year from investors such as Skyview Capital and A&T Capital. Echooo has completed an audit by Coinspect.

Other smart contract wallets that have received grants from the Ethereum Foundation

(most are without finished products or are in closed testing status, and are in the early stages of development)

MynaWallet

MynaWallet focuses on the local Japanese market, enabling users to use smart accounts integrated with their government-issued ID card, Myna Card. Through the Myna Card, Japanese users can make seamless cryptocurrency payments on MynaWallet.

QR Seal

QR Seal is a multisig wallet with privacy protection and Gas optimization implemented through account abstraction and Schnorr signatures. With QR Seal, all signatures are done off-chain, currently done in person by scanning QR codes between devices. Once everyone has signed the transaction, it is broadcasted on-chain.

ZKP-based Account Abstraction Wallet Built by the IoTeX Team

Created by two senior researchers from the IoTeX team, this ZKP-based account abstraction wallet features operations with Web2 authentication, social recovery using the status of Web2 social media, and the initialization of zero-balance wallets using mainstream Web2 payment channels.

Tokensight

An open-source WebAuthn wallet, based on an on-chain WebAuthn signature verification scheme for Gas cost optimization, without using any type of MPC architecture, thus offering maximum security and decentralization.

Hexlink

Hexlink aims to provide all ENS domain users with a usable smart account compatible with ERC-4337 through EIP-4972. Through Hexlink, ENS domain holders can export a unique smart account exclusively deployed by the domain owner, facilitating the migration of ENS users from EOA to smart accounts.

UniPass

UniPass has launched an account abstraction SDK for developers, offering a user experience based on smart contract wallets with no seed phrase and no Gas. They’ve also launched an on-chain signature for ID Tokens in the verifiable OpenID Connect protocol, used for new user logins and recovery. In May of this year, UniPass and hardware wallet developer Keystone announced their official merger to form Account Labs.

Clave

Clave is a non-custodial smart contract wallet, supported by account abstraction and hardware elements such as Apple’s Secure Enclave, Android’s Trustzone, etc.

References:

https://web3datadegens.substack.com/p/web3-sql-weekly-8-analyzing-account

https://mirror.xyz/erc4337official.eth/hRn_41cef8oKn44ZncN9pXvY3VID6LZOtpLlktXYtmA