Why Account Abstraction can help Onboarding the next billion users?

One-sentence summary:  The EOA account system is the biggest obstacle for general users to use web3 applications. Account abstraction can completely remove the ecological dependence on EOA, which is the only way for the blockchain network to enter the mainstream population.

Noted: EOA is a concept that only exists in Ethereum or evm-compatible chains. However other blockchain ecosystems cannot be compared with evm-compatible ecosystem, “Onboarding next billion users” is very likely to appear in the evm-compatible ecosystem.

What is EOA account system? What's the downside of it?

EOA: Externally Owned Account

Private key → Public key → keccak256 hash → last 20 Bytes → hex string → EOA address

Every EOA is associated with an encrypted object:

• Private key: used to sign transactions.

• Public key: Allows anyone to verify that a given signature is indeed the signature of its corresponding private key.

In addition, every transaction on Ethereum must be sent from EOA, which is, if a transaction is executed by the EVM, it should be sent from EOA and the EOA must pay transaction fee to miner for executing the transaction.

The role of EOA account system is:

• Maintain the balance of the account.

• Make sure each transaction is unique.

• Identifies the blockchain account.

This makes it difficult for general users to use DApps in evm-compatible ecosystem:

• Users must hold ether and bear the risk of price fluctuations

• Users need to keep the private key. The loss of the user's private key (lost, hacked, cryptographically cracked) means the loss of all assets

• Users need to deal with complex cost logic and concepts such as gas price, gas limit, etc.

Compared with the simple and silky user experience of web2 applications，it is not difficult to understand why the EOA account system is the biggest obstacle for general users to use web3 applications.

What is Account Abstraction?

Abstraction (computer science) is “the process of removing or generalizing physical, spatial, or temporal details or attributes in the study of objects or system to focus attention on details of greater importance , it is similar in nature to the process of generalization.”

Account Abstraction is to omit unnecessary details in the existing Ethereum account system to reduce complexity. It is a technical solution to be implemented on Ethereum.

It is mainly to implement：

• Send transactions without ether

• Implement customized verification logic and algorithms

The benefits it can bring are:

• Smart contract accounts can actively send transactions and consumes less gas.

• Users can pay transaction fees with other tokens

......

In fact, since the launch of Ethereum in 2015, the discussion of account abstraction has not stopped. And currently EIP-4337 , an account abstraction proposal which completely avoids consensus-layer protocol changes, instead relying on higher-layer infrastructure, is the closest design to achieve account abstraction.

It can be said that Account Abstraction is not far from being implemented. When the evm-compatible ecosystem deploys Account Abstraction on a large scale, the user experience will be greatly improved. In this way, the next killer APP that can "Onboarding next billion users" will be no longer far.

Ref: https://mirror.xyz/zhixian.eth/dACTTYPzEfRcF6jSE_iwJsnbNmN2Ier_NA_TzkZaOeM https://foresightnews.pro/article/detail/10558 https://medium.com/taipei-ethereum-meetup/account-abstraction-%E6%8A%BD%E8%B1%A1%E5%B8%B3%E6%88%B6-eip-2938-%E7%B0%A1%E4%BB%8B-edfd64fac767 https://www.panewslab.com/zh_hk/articledetails/9ic7g43u.html https://www.aicoin.com/article/315377.html https://chainnews-archive.org/posts/609843804710/

Web3 companies pay well: Web3 companies have a lot of venture capital funding and are hiring like crazy. Flexibility: Many companies allow you to work remotely. This is the future: you can get an early ride in a fast-moving industry.

People are talking about Web3 like that, right? Well, what is the actual situation? Is it really that good to work in a Web3 company?

I have been working in the web3 industry for 5+ years, and now I am still working in a well-known blockchain wallet company. I would like to talk about my experience and hope it will be helpful to you.

Who am I?

My name is Bella, my major is software engineering. After graduation, I worked as an embedded software engineer in a Japanese office equipment company. Then I joined an Internet company as a marketing content specialist. —— My career moved to a completely different field.

After that, In 2017, I joined in the Web3 industry until now. ——Yes, my career moved again.——Currently, I am a DeveloperRelations Manager in a well-known blockchain wallet company.

How did I join the first Web3 company？

In fact, luck plays a big part.

I had a gap year after my second job as a marketing content specialist. In 2017, I relocated and start to find a job. I didn’t know Bitcoin let alone blockchain at that time

one day, I got an interview invitation, although the company was a start-up, the team had extensive project experience, also the whole interview process was very professional, so I finally accepted the offer and worked as a project manager.

It was only later that I found out my company was developing an underlying blockchain network project.

What have I done?

My first job was as a project manager. The company was developing an underlying permissionless blockchain network project. In addition to the underlying protocol, there were also development tools, including an official blockchain wallet, blockchain network explorer, SDKs, faucet, and so on. 

I was in charge of managing these projects so that outside developers could come and use them after the underlying permissionless blockchain network’s testnet and mainnet launch. Besides, I also hosted an internal hackathon and the testnet mining competition which are for project testing.

Then I became a Developer Relations/Advocate. A developer advocate is like a translator between the company’s projects and outside developers. I need to bring my ideas and experience to make outside developers interested in our projects, such as implementing the official docs website, writing technical blogs, giving online talks, and implementing the DApp demo.

If you want to join a web3 company ......

Flexibility? Yes, it is.  At present, most companies in the web3 industry are remote-friendly. I have been working remotely for almost two years.

Pay well? I’m not sure. A web3 company always prefers the Performance-Based Pay structure. The web3 technology updates and iterates very fast. People must learn quickly, otherwise let alone working, you can't even understand the hot topics. It may be very hard to join a web3 company with zero experience these days.

Web3 is the future? It is all a matter of opinion.  The Web3 industry is still in the early stage, and the policies of various countries are still being improved.  For example, In 2021, China issued a Notice on Further Preventing and Resolving the Risks of Virtual Currency Trading and Speculation, which shut down all mining pools in China. Recently, the Crypto mixing service Tornado Cash was blacklisted by U.S. Treasury Department for alleged use in laundering.

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