Ethereum developers, if you’ve been curious about account abstraction, this post is for you. I’ve just published Part 1 of my Medium series on ERC-4337, and here’s a developer-friendly breakdown of the basics.
Why ERC-4337 Matters
Ethereum EOAs are rigid by design: nonces, gas payments, and validation are protocol-defined. Account abstraction lets the account itself define its behavior. ERC-4337 achieves most of this without changing Ethereum consensus.
Intent vs Transaction
Instead of sending a transaction, ERC-4337 uses UserOperations, essentially “intents”:
-
sender: the account address -
nonce: account-specific nonce -
callData: function call data -
signature: proof of authorization -
paymaster: optional gas sponsor - gas limits and metadata
These UserOperations stay off-chain until included by a bundler.
Key Components
- Bundlers: Collect, simulate, and submit UserOperations as single transactions.
- EntryPoint: A shared contract that executes UserOperations on accounts.
- Paymasters: Optional contracts to sponsor gas for users.
All ERC-4337 logic flows through these components, but Ethereum itself only sees normal transactions calling the EntryPoint.
Related Standards
ERC-4337 builds on existing standards: EIP-1271 (contract signatures), ERC-165 (interface detection), ERC-7579 (modular accounts), and EIP-7702 (future directions).
For the full breakdown with architecture diagrams, sequence flows, and examples, check out the original Medium article here:
https://medium.com/@Kurt0x/account-abstraction-erc-4337-part-1-the-basics-da3dee805a24
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