bougainvilleCrowdmuse: Turning creations into connections
The drop platform with the potential to become the go-to launchpad for creators worldwide.
bougainvilleAbstract: A collegial Layer 2 for consumer crypto
The most hyped chain abstraction actor is about to enter the arena. Is this the final frontier?
bougainvilleCrowdmuse: Turning creations into connections
The drop platform with the potential to become the go-to launchpad for creators worldwide.
bougainvilleAbstract: A collegial Layer 2 for consumer crypto
The most hyped chain abstraction actor is about to enter the arena. Is this the final frontier?
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Rhinestone August fundraising allows us to talk about Account Abstraction, and the latest innovations in the field.
Rhinestone addresses a challenge that every emerging technology faces in its early stages: user experience. Every breakthrough brings a phase of initial exploration and growing pains until a pivotal innovation, often born from frustration, lays a new foundation and unlocks a wave of applications. Since the dawn of the Internet, these transformative shifts have usually revolved around programmability. As data grows denser and cross-application modularity becomes more vital, the need for seamless integration has only intensified.
In the Web3 ecosystem, wallets serve as the primary gateway for users. Transforming them into programmable entities might feel intuitive now, but it presented significant challenges at the time. This shift required modifications to ERC standards, evolving wallets from mere storage solutions into dynamic, programmable tools. These "smart accounts" have become keys that unlock a wide array of business and social interactions, fundamentally redefining what wallets can do.
In this post, we will explore:
A bit about Account Abstraction (AA)
Rhinestone's Approach to Modularity
A Use Case
Account abstraction, a concept discussed since 2015, improves the safety and security of self-custodial wallets by removing users’ reliance on the private key and making wallets programmable. With this enhanced UX, non-custodial wallets can finally scale to millions of mainstream crypto users.
Rhinestone August fundraising allows us to talk about Account Abstraction, and the latest innovations in the field.
Rhinestone addresses a challenge that every emerging technology faces in its early stages: user experience. Every breakthrough brings a phase of initial exploration and growing pains until a pivotal innovation, often born from frustration, lays a new foundation and unlocks a wave of applications. Since the dawn of the Internet, these transformative shifts have usually revolved around programmability. As data grows denser and cross-application modularity becomes more vital, the need for seamless integration has only intensified.
In the Web3 ecosystem, wallets serve as the primary gateway for users. Transforming them into programmable entities might feel intuitive now, but it presented significant challenges at the time. This shift required modifications to ERC standards, evolving wallets from mere storage solutions into dynamic, programmable tools. These "smart accounts" have become keys that unlock a wide array of business and social interactions, fundamentally redefining what wallets can do.
In this post, we will explore:
A bit about Account Abstraction (AA)
Rhinestone's Approach to Modularity
A Use Case
Account abstraction, a concept discussed since 2015, improves the safety and security of self-custodial wallets by removing users’ reliance on the private key and making wallets programmable. With this enhanced UX, non-custodial wallets can finally scale to millions of mainstream crypto users.
There are two types of accounts associated with an Ethereum blockchain address:
EOA
Contract Accounts
Externally owned accounts (EOAs):
Externally owned accounts, like MetaMask, Rabby, and Coinbase Wallet, are the typical account type for Ethereum users. Each EOA consists of a private and public key, called a keypair.
EOAs enable users to generate and authorize transactions to transfer funds or execute specific contracts. In essence, they can be likened to key-operated vaults, offering the benefits of simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and speed. However, they also have drawbacks, including their reliance on a single private key for account security, which makes them susceptible to theft, and their inability to support programmability.
All transactions are authorized and signed by private keys. Once a transaction is signed, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) verifies that the signature is valid using the EOA’s account address. The hard-coded logic in the EVM signifies that the account (the object holding your tokens) and the private key (signer) are coupled as one.
Contract accounts:
Meanwhile, contract accounts, synonymous with account abstraction, are smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum blockchain. These contracts are controlled by code logic and do not require private keys. Unlike EOAs, contract accounts can not originate transactions. Instead, their transactions are triggered by instructions from EOAs.
Before:
Complexity: conducting your first transaction on a decentralized exchange like Uniswap requires knowledge about how a wallet works (hustle of copy-pasting, network fees, seed phase backing).
Security: if you lose your MetaMask seed phrase or your account is hacked, your precious ETH and any other tokens you hold may disappear forever.
Limited functionality: Compared to smart contract accounts, EOAs offer limited functionality. They can only perform basic actions, like sending and receiving cryptocurrency. This restricts the potential for more advanced dApp features or functionalities within Uniswap. For example, you might want to set limit orders, automate trades, or combine the approval and transfer actions in one call when trading an ERC20 token on Uniswap.
After:
With Account Abstraction, signing up for a DEX becomes as straightforward as using your email address or an existing social media login (when supported). It’s a familiar process—just like registering for most apps today. No more struggling with seed phrases or navigating compatibility issues across various wallets.
Smart contract accounts elevate functionality on platforms like Uniswap to an entirely new level. Picture setting limit orders for trades, automating recurring token purchases, or seamlessly integrating with other DeFi applications—all with ease. Account Abstraction also revolutionizes gas management. Platforms can now offer to cover gas fees for their users, and, even better, gas fees can be paid in tokens other than ETH. This eliminates the need to maintain an ETH balance just to fund transactions. Instead, the user’s tokens are swapped for ETH within the smart contract, which is then used to pay for gas. It’s a smoother, more versatile experience for everyone.
A quick note on gas:
Gas is by no means anecdotal for onboarding the non-crypto-savvy. A 2022 Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), EIP-2771, introduced the concept of meta-transactions that allow third parties to pay for a user's gas costs without changing the Ethereum protocol. The idea is that transactions signed by a user get sent to a forwarder contract. The forwarder is a trusted entity verifying that transactions are valid before sending them to a gas relay. This is done off-chain, avoiding the need to pay gas. The gas relay passes the transaction on to a recipient contract, paying the necessary gas to make the transaction executable on Ethereum. The transaction is executed if the Forwarder is known and trusted by the recipient. This model makes it easy for developers to implement gasless transactions for users and onboard them on different dApps while minimizing friction. You can learn more here.
In short, Account abstraction serves as a bridge, transitioning contract accounts from passive entities to active participants in the blockchain dialogue. This transformation enables smart contracts to initiate transactions autonomously, execute complex conditional logic, and offer enhanced security mechanisms. Thus, they become “smart accounts" and fuel product innovation for the next onboarding wave.
With a drive for more interoperability and in response to ERC-4337, Rhinestone co-authored on December 2023, ERC-7579, whose goal was to standardize modular smart accounts to bring interoperability while giving flexibility to builders. Today, Rhinestone's mission is to transform smart accounts into an open innovation platform where any developer can build a module (“smart account app”) that can be easily installed on any smart account implementation. Just like the App Store from Apple.
It makes a lot of sense since these smart accounts were previously built in vastly different ways, creating module fragmentation and vendor lock-in. From Rhinestone's point of view, there were several reasons why standardizing smart accounts was very beneficial to the ecosystem, including:
Interoperability for modules to be used across different smart accounts
Interoperability for smart accounts to be used across different wallet applications and SDKs
Preventing significant vendor lock-in for smart account users
Thanks to ERC-7579 and Rhinestone efforts, modules, the building blocks of Smart Accounts, now have a minimally required interface, unlocking some consensus. Each module, akin to a piece of Lego, extends the on-chain functionality of the core account, enabling a bespoke construction of features tailored to user needs. They are smart contracts that can be attached to a wallet to extend its functionality.
Modular Architecture: At a granular level, developers can now create those modules, making the accounts more versatile and customizable. Mix and easily match features like email recovery, passkeys, and multi-chain spending. For instance, modules include Passkeys / WebAuthn Validator, which enables a passkey as a signer on a smart account, allowing users to sign cryptographic messages with their biometrics via the secure enclave of their device or use a preferred password manager. A module store is jointly being built between Rhinestone and Biconomy. More here
Developer Empowerment: Any developer can create modules, fostering innovation in wallet technology. Developers can share their modules freely, which encourages innovation.
Smart Session integration
The Smart Session Integration from Rhinestone is designed to seamlessly connect various user sessions across platforms and services, ensuring a unified and uninterrupted experience. It allows users to switch between applications without losing progress or repeatedly logging in, maintaining session continuity across devices. This solution is handy for businesses that require consistent user engagement across multiple touchpoints, improving workflow efficiency. It also reduces end-user friction, providing a smoother, more cohesive digital journey. Those Smart Sessions are enabling Rhinestone automation at scale.
Rhinestone Automations
Rhinestone Automations is an off-chain service that tracks events (such as time-based or on-chain occurrences) and initiates actions when specific conditions are met. Users can authorize these automations using session keys while retaining control of their accounts and funds. These remain outside the automation process and are secured in a dedicated contract separate from the smart account.
Triggers. These are components that schedule automation based on specified conditions. Triggers are made up of two parts: trigger data, a user-provided data set, and the trigger source, a service wrapper that monitors the relevant data source to check when the user-defined conditions are met.
"Today, we have pre-built “Rhinestone Triggers” that include time-based and on-chain events. However, the service is built in a manner such that anyone can contribute a custom trigger."
Automation manager. As the orchestrator block, it implements features like subscriptions, yield farming auto-rebalancing, and advanced wallet features. The Automation Manager from Rhinestone is a powerful tool designed to streamline and automate complex workflows based on user-defined conditions. It allows users to create triggers by combining custom data inputs with monitored data sources, enabling dynamic responses to specific events (for instance, implementing features like subscriptions, yield farming auto-rebalancing and advanced wallet features). With an intuitive interface, it simplifies the scheduling of automation, saving time and reducing manual intervention. while integrating seamlessly with various services, making it adaptable to various industries.
Automation SDK. API user management and automation management (create, remove, get automations, supply trigger data, and trigger source).
Automation API
A communication layer between applications and the automation service. It allows developers to create API keys for users to the automation service, create and remove triggers, and create and remove automations.
In periods of high on-chain activity, gas fees can spike unpredictably, making it costly to execute transactions. Rhinestone Automations can help users optimize gas costs by dynamically scheduling transactions for execution during low-fee periods.
By leveraging Smart Sessions, users can authorize a session key with specific limits, such as target addresses, gas price ceilings, and transaction types, to automate the process. The Automations service then continuously monitors the network, identifying optimal windows when gas prices drop below the pre-set threshold. Once conditions are met, the transaction is executed automatically, saving users both time and money.
For example, a user could set up an automated transaction to swap tokens or stake funds but limit execution to only when gas prices fall below 30 gwei. Rhinestone Automations handles the monitoring and execution without users needing to interact with the blockchain manually, ensuring cost efficiency without sacrificing control. Encoded programmability for the masses.
Smart accounts empower users to authorize third-party services to conduct transactions on their behalf, minimizing the need for trust and enabling a new wave of user-friendly Web3 features. This evolution makes the blockchain more programmable and asynchronous, unlocking exciting new use cases to shape the digital world's future.
In this new world, I believe Rhinestone Automations elegantly handles the complexities involved, such as integrating data sources, establishing conditional triggers, managing keys, constructing User Operations, and coordinating with the essential transaction infrastructure, ensuring a radical change of standards for a seamless user experience.
If you want to learn more about what @kurt__larsen and his team are building, check Rhinestone Docs.
There are two types of accounts associated with an Ethereum blockchain address:
EOA
Contract Accounts
Externally owned accounts (EOAs):
Externally owned accounts, like MetaMask, Rabby, and Coinbase Wallet, are the typical account type for Ethereum users. Each EOA consists of a private and public key, called a keypair.
EOAs enable users to generate and authorize transactions to transfer funds or execute specific contracts. In essence, they can be likened to key-operated vaults, offering the benefits of simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and speed. However, they also have drawbacks, including their reliance on a single private key for account security, which makes them susceptible to theft, and their inability to support programmability.
All transactions are authorized and signed by private keys. Once a transaction is signed, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) verifies that the signature is valid using the EOA’s account address. The hard-coded logic in the EVM signifies that the account (the object holding your tokens) and the private key (signer) are coupled as one.
Contract accounts:
Meanwhile, contract accounts, synonymous with account abstraction, are smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum blockchain. These contracts are controlled by code logic and do not require private keys. Unlike EOAs, contract accounts can not originate transactions. Instead, their transactions are triggered by instructions from EOAs.
Before:
Complexity: conducting your first transaction on a decentralized exchange like Uniswap requires knowledge about how a wallet works (hustle of copy-pasting, network fees, seed phase backing).
Security: if you lose your MetaMask seed phrase or your account is hacked, your precious ETH and any other tokens you hold may disappear forever.
Limited functionality: Compared to smart contract accounts, EOAs offer limited functionality. They can only perform basic actions, like sending and receiving cryptocurrency. This restricts the potential for more advanced dApp features or functionalities within Uniswap. For example, you might want to set limit orders, automate trades, or combine the approval and transfer actions in one call when trading an ERC20 token on Uniswap.
After:
With Account Abstraction, signing up for a DEX becomes as straightforward as using your email address or an existing social media login (when supported). It’s a familiar process—just like registering for most apps today. No more struggling with seed phrases or navigating compatibility issues across various wallets.
Smart contract accounts elevate functionality on platforms like Uniswap to an entirely new level. Picture setting limit orders for trades, automating recurring token purchases, or seamlessly integrating with other DeFi applications—all with ease. Account Abstraction also revolutionizes gas management. Platforms can now offer to cover gas fees for their users, and, even better, gas fees can be paid in tokens other than ETH. This eliminates the need to maintain an ETH balance just to fund transactions. Instead, the user’s tokens are swapped for ETH within the smart contract, which is then used to pay for gas. It’s a smoother, more versatile experience for everyone.
A quick note on gas:
Gas is by no means anecdotal for onboarding the non-crypto-savvy. A 2022 Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), EIP-2771, introduced the concept of meta-transactions that allow third parties to pay for a user's gas costs without changing the Ethereum protocol. The idea is that transactions signed by a user get sent to a forwarder contract. The forwarder is a trusted entity verifying that transactions are valid before sending them to a gas relay. This is done off-chain, avoiding the need to pay gas. The gas relay passes the transaction on to a recipient contract, paying the necessary gas to make the transaction executable on Ethereum. The transaction is executed if the Forwarder is known and trusted by the recipient. This model makes it easy for developers to implement gasless transactions for users and onboard them on different dApps while minimizing friction. You can learn more here.
In short, Account abstraction serves as a bridge, transitioning contract accounts from passive entities to active participants in the blockchain dialogue. This transformation enables smart contracts to initiate transactions autonomously, execute complex conditional logic, and offer enhanced security mechanisms. Thus, they become “smart accounts" and fuel product innovation for the next onboarding wave.
With a drive for more interoperability and in response to ERC-4337, Rhinestone co-authored on December 2023, ERC-7579, whose goal was to standardize modular smart accounts to bring interoperability while giving flexibility to builders. Today, Rhinestone's mission is to transform smart accounts into an open innovation platform where any developer can build a module (“smart account app”) that can be easily installed on any smart account implementation. Just like the App Store from Apple.
It makes a lot of sense since these smart accounts were previously built in vastly different ways, creating module fragmentation and vendor lock-in. From Rhinestone's point of view, there were several reasons why standardizing smart accounts was very beneficial to the ecosystem, including:
Interoperability for modules to be used across different smart accounts
Interoperability for smart accounts to be used across different wallet applications and SDKs
Preventing significant vendor lock-in for smart account users
Thanks to ERC-7579 and Rhinestone efforts, modules, the building blocks of Smart Accounts, now have a minimally required interface, unlocking some consensus. Each module, akin to a piece of Lego, extends the on-chain functionality of the core account, enabling a bespoke construction of features tailored to user needs. They are smart contracts that can be attached to a wallet to extend its functionality.
Modular Architecture: At a granular level, developers can now create those modules, making the accounts more versatile and customizable. Mix and easily match features like email recovery, passkeys, and multi-chain spending. For instance, modules include Passkeys / WebAuthn Validator, which enables a passkey as a signer on a smart account, allowing users to sign cryptographic messages with their biometrics via the secure enclave of their device or use a preferred password manager. A module store is jointly being built between Rhinestone and Biconomy. More here
Developer Empowerment: Any developer can create modules, fostering innovation in wallet technology. Developers can share their modules freely, which encourages innovation.
Smart Session integration
The Smart Session Integration from Rhinestone is designed to seamlessly connect various user sessions across platforms and services, ensuring a unified and uninterrupted experience. It allows users to switch between applications without losing progress or repeatedly logging in, maintaining session continuity across devices. This solution is handy for businesses that require consistent user engagement across multiple touchpoints, improving workflow efficiency. It also reduces end-user friction, providing a smoother, more cohesive digital journey. Those Smart Sessions are enabling Rhinestone automation at scale.
Rhinestone Automations
Rhinestone Automations is an off-chain service that tracks events (such as time-based or on-chain occurrences) and initiates actions when specific conditions are met. Users can authorize these automations using session keys while retaining control of their accounts and funds. These remain outside the automation process and are secured in a dedicated contract separate from the smart account.
Triggers. These are components that schedule automation based on specified conditions. Triggers are made up of two parts: trigger data, a user-provided data set, and the trigger source, a service wrapper that monitors the relevant data source to check when the user-defined conditions are met.
"Today, we have pre-built “Rhinestone Triggers” that include time-based and on-chain events. However, the service is built in a manner such that anyone can contribute a custom trigger."
Automation manager. As the orchestrator block, it implements features like subscriptions, yield farming auto-rebalancing, and advanced wallet features. The Automation Manager from Rhinestone is a powerful tool designed to streamline and automate complex workflows based on user-defined conditions. It allows users to create triggers by combining custom data inputs with monitored data sources, enabling dynamic responses to specific events (for instance, implementing features like subscriptions, yield farming auto-rebalancing and advanced wallet features). With an intuitive interface, it simplifies the scheduling of automation, saving time and reducing manual intervention. while integrating seamlessly with various services, making it adaptable to various industries.
Automation SDK. API user management and automation management (create, remove, get automations, supply trigger data, and trigger source).
Automation API
A communication layer between applications and the automation service. It allows developers to create API keys for users to the automation service, create and remove triggers, and create and remove automations.
In periods of high on-chain activity, gas fees can spike unpredictably, making it costly to execute transactions. Rhinestone Automations can help users optimize gas costs by dynamically scheduling transactions for execution during low-fee periods.
By leveraging Smart Sessions, users can authorize a session key with specific limits, such as target addresses, gas price ceilings, and transaction types, to automate the process. The Automations service then continuously monitors the network, identifying optimal windows when gas prices drop below the pre-set threshold. Once conditions are met, the transaction is executed automatically, saving users both time and money.
For example, a user could set up an automated transaction to swap tokens or stake funds but limit execution to only when gas prices fall below 30 gwei. Rhinestone Automations handles the monitoring and execution without users needing to interact with the blockchain manually, ensuring cost efficiency without sacrificing control. Encoded programmability for the masses.
Smart accounts empower users to authorize third-party services to conduct transactions on their behalf, minimizing the need for trust and enabling a new wave of user-friendly Web3 features. This evolution makes the blockchain more programmable and asynchronous, unlocking exciting new use cases to shape the digital world's future.
In this new world, I believe Rhinestone Automations elegantly handles the complexities involved, such as integrating data sources, establishing conditional triggers, managing keys, constructing User Operations, and coordinating with the essential transaction infrastructure, ensuring a radical change of standards for a seamless user experience.
If you want to learn more about what @kurt__larsen and his team are building, check Rhinestone Docs.
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