Top 6 Account Abstraction Providers: An In-Depth Review

Blockchain technology is evolving rapidly, and with the appropriate instruments, the potential is vast

Prez Thomas

Published in

Coinmonks

9 min readSep 13, 2023

Using Web3 wallets is a key part of the blockchain experience. But for many newcomers, the current system can be challenging. When someone downloads a wallet app, they’re faced with tasks like setting up the wallet, keeping their private keys safe, managing money transfers, understanding gas fees, and using dApps correctly.

With its steep learning curve, the current landscape of Web3 wallets stands as a formidable barrier to widespread acceptance.

But here’s the game-changer: ERC-4337, a fresh approach to Account Abstraction technology. This innovative standard heralds a new era, introducing the concept of ‘smart contract wallets’ or what many refer to as ‘smart accounts’ within the Ethereum ecosystem and its EVM-compatible counterparts.

A Brief Dive into Account Abstraction (ERC-4337)

At its core, ERC-4337 represents a pivotal Ethereum enhancement, enabling the creation of non-custodial wallets that function as adaptable smart contracts.

This opens up many possibilities, including:

hassle-free wallet recovery
transactions without the need for signatures
social logins
collaborative team wallets
and many more

All of them are aimed at refining the Web3 journey to be more secure, efficient, and versatile.

Now that we are familiar with ERC-4337 let’s see what products are out there today. We’ve compiled a list of the top 6 AA providers.

Stackup: Robust Smart Account Infrastructure

Stackup is a sophisticated platform that simplifies the complexities of building smart accounts. Recognized for its maturity and reliability, Stackup is the go-to choice for businesses aiming to harness the power of the most advanced ERC-4337 infrastructure available.

Their track record speaks volumes, boasting an impressive uptime of over 99.9%.

They offer two main products:

Nodes: Stackup’s nodes service ensures businesses can focus on app development without the overhead of managing infrastructure.
Paymaster: With Stackup’s Paymaster API, businesses can leverage account abstraction with ERC-4337, enabling third parties to sponsor gas for accounts under specific conditions. Stackup’s paymasters facilitate transactions sponsored by users or accept ERC-20 tokens for gas payments.

Thanks to Stackup, there’s no need to grapple with running your own bundlers. They provide dependable ERC-4337 infrastructure and nodes across all EVM-compatible chains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, and more. Their service ensures seamless access to both blockchain nodes and ERC-4337 bundlers via a unified URL and API key.

Gas fees can be a hurdle, but not with Stackup’s managed paymaster service. It allows businesses to implement bespoke logic, either sponsoring transactions directly or enabling users to pay gas in ERC-20 tokens. And the best part? No hassles with gas tanks or contract deployments.

Moreover, they offer a comprehensive discovery package, guiding businesses through the potential of AA, saving them months of development work.

Alchemy: One of the Easiest Ways to Connect Your dApp to Blockchain

Alchemy stands out as a holistic Web3 development platform, providing indispensable APIs, SDKs, and tools that enable developers to craft and amplify their applications with ease.

A cornerstone in the Web3 application arena, Alchemy introduces features like Supernode, ensuring infinite scalability, unmatched reliability, and 100% data accuracy. Remarkably, Alchemy’s Supernode achieves a 99.9% uptime, vastly outshining standard nodes.

The Alchemy SDK further elevates the platform’s offerings. Designed to simplify coding and accelerate development, the SDK allows effortless connection of dApps to the blockchain.

With just a couple of lines of code, developers are set to launch. The SDK not only extends the Ethers.js provider but also introduces a plethora of additional functionalities. This includes Alchemy’s renowned NFT API, WebSockets, and multichain support for platforms like Polygon and Optimism.

The SDK’s quality-of-life improvements, such as automatic retries and timeout handling, make it tenfold more user-friendly than direct API calls.

Alchemy’s prowess is reflected in its staggering metrics: over $100 billion in on-chain transaction volume, $1.5 billion in royalties to NFT creators, and a user base in the tens of millions. Industry leaders’ testimonials further accentuate its reliability and efficiency.

In terms of pricing, Alchemy is versatile, catering to a broad spectrum from startups to Fortune 500 entities, offering plans from a free tier to bespoke enterprise solutions.

Etherspot: Probably the Most Comprehensive Offering

Etherspot is an all-in-one multichain smart contract platform. It supports chains like Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum One, Optimism, Fuse, Mantle, Gnosis, and more.

Unlike other products on the list, it stands out as one of the leading figures in account abstraction development and research.

This platform offers a developer-friendly Typescript Bundler Skandha, designed to enhance transaction management. Its primary goal is to optimize gas costs and elevate the efficiency of blockchain interactions. This service batches multiple UserOperations (transactions) into a singular transaction.

Etherspot is all about simplifying the user experience. By shifting the often complex Web3 journey into a seamless experience, it ensures that users, regardless of their technical know-how, can navigate the blockchain world with ease.

Using this platform, you’re not just limited to one chain. You can source liquidity from any EVM chain, freeing you from the constraints of adding liquidity to each one. This empowers developers to unleash their creativity, propelling their apps into the expansive world of Web3 account abstraction.

Whether you’re building from scratch or updating an existing app, with just a few lines of code, you can firmly root account abstraction at the core of your dapp, making the implementation process both simple and swift.

Other notable features include:

Multichain NFT Support: Etherspot offers a secure platform for users to interact with NFTs, ensuring safe storage and easy viewing.
Cross-Chain Bridging & Transaction Bundling: Expand your reach without deploying your dapp on other EVM chains.
Fiat On & Off Ramping: Users can buy and sell up to €1000 per day from within your dApp without the need for KYC.
Social Logins: Users can create counterfactual wallets and have an easy recovery process, eliminating the need for prior experience.
Transaction Batching/Multi-Call: Enhance the user experience by offering one-click actions, eliminating the need for signing multiple transactions.
Sponsored Transactions: Provide a seamless, Web2-like user experience by sponsoring transactions for your dApp.
Meta-transactions: Offer flexibility by allowing users to pay for gas with any stablecoin on any chain.
Seamless Multichain Experience: Ensure users don’t get bogged down with details like RPC network switching when interacting cross-chain.

ZeroDev: Web 2.5 Framework

ZeroDev is a framework for the development and enhancement of smart wallets using account abstraction (ERC-4337).

It stands out by offering flexibility for both custodial and non-custodial AA wallets and seamlessly integrates with wallet-as-a-service (WaaS) solutions like Web3Auth, transforming traditional EOA wallets into advanced AA wallets.

They provide many smart wallet features, such as gas sponsoring, transaction batching, and session keys. For those seeking customization, ZeroDev delivers the capability to design bespoke smart wallet plugins, ensuring tailored solutions for unique needs.

While ZeroDev is a powerhouse of features, it’s not a standalone wallet. Instead, it’s a developer-centric, headless wallet primed for integration into diverse projects, allowing developers to overlay their UI.

Its “smart wallets” address the pressing challenges of Web3 UX, introducing innovations like gas sponsorship and automated transactions. For newcomers, ZeroDev offers a structured learning curve, starting with tutorials and progressing to advanced functionalities.

Its operational model emphasizes flexibility, from diverse key provider support to a high-availability meta-bundler network.

Biconomy: Elevating Web3 with Seamless Interactions

Biconomy is a provider of a powerful toolkit for the Web3 ecosystem. It offers a suite of features that transform complex blockchain interactions into user-friendly experiences.

The project has successfully onboarded over 3.5 million users to Web3, processing a staggering 28 million transactions and handling over 2 billion in total volume. Their reputation is further solidified by partnerships with trusted brands in the space:

The Sandbox
Decentraland
dYdX

Biconomy’s SDK simplifies the dApp experience by batching multiple transactions, transforming intricate user pathways into straightforward, few-click journeys. With this toolkit, dApp developers can offer rapid onboarding using smart accounts. It supports both mainstream and native Web3 users, integrating social logins and fiat on-ramps for a seamless entry.

Biconomy’s AA capabilities act on behalf of users in a non-custodial manner. This reduces the constant need for user signatures, making interactions smoother.

The extensive catalog of modules allows developers to design user journeys with ease. These modules can be plugged, stacked, and customized, akin to assembling legos, ensuring a tailored experience for users.

Their flagship product has been refined over 2.5 years, assisting over 200 apps and brands in processing nearly 25 million gasless meta-transactions for 2.8 million unique Web3 users.

Biconomy’s modules make applications chain agnostic in no time. They aggregate leading protocols like Wormhole and Axelar, ensuring users remain oblivious to the intricacies of chains and bridges.

The company also recognized the annoyance of repeated signings for every dApp interaction. Their upcoming session keys feature will allow users to sign in just once for a set session duration, balancing both simplicity and security.

Pimlico: Offers First Permissionless, Fully-Audited ERC20 Paymaster

Pimlico is an infrastructure platform tailored for the creation of next-gen Smart Wallets.

Pimlico provides an array of tools, including a bundler, verifying paymaster, and ERC-20 paymaster. These tools are meticulously crafted to enhance wallet stability and expedite the development process.

Alto Bundler

Currently in its private beta phase, the Alto Bundler is a high-performance, type-safe ERC-4337 bundler developed in Typescript.

It emphasizes type safety, transaction reliability, and speed, ensuring transactions remain unaffected by sudden gas price fluctuations or chain reorganizations.

The bundler has already been deployed on multiple networks, including Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, Gnosis, and Linea, among others.

Verifying Paymaster

This unique feature combines an API with an on-chain smart contract, enabling developers to sponsor gas fees for their users.

By interacting with the API, developers receive a signature that the smart contract recognizes, covering the user’s gas fees. The system operates by deducting from the developer’s off-chain balance in return for sponsoring on-chain gas fees.

This paymaster also supports a wide range of networks, from Ethereum and Arbitrum to Gnosis and Celo.

ERC-20 Paymaster

A groundbreaking addition to Pimlico’s offerings, the ERC-20 Paymaster is an on-chain paymaster compatible with ERC-4337.

It facilitates the payment of user gas fees in exchange for ERC-20 tokens. Pimlico takes pride in launching the first fully audited, permissionless ERC20 Paymaster.

Its design emphasizes permissionlessness, eliminating the need for interactions with hosted APIs. However, it’s worth noting that while the paymaster operates without permission, it isn’t decentralized.

It employs Chainlink for its price oracles, determining prices based on the ERC20 Token to USD and Native Token to USD ratios.

Account Abstraction SDK

Pimlico’s SDK provides a modular framework for integrating account abstraction into applications. It facilitates the creation, access, and management of smart contract accounts, reducing the overhead associated with these operations. By abstracting the complexities of account interactions, the SDK ensures efficient and error-free integration.

Bottom Line

The concept of smart accounts is rapidly evolving, and with it comes the need for tools that simplify and enhance the user experience. Highly advanced AA platforms bridge the gap between the complexities of blockchain and the expectations of mainstream users.

From Etherspot’s comprehensive multichain offerings to Alchemy’s robust development platform, the market is brimming with innovative solutions that cater to diverse needs.

Whether it’s Biconomy’s user-friendly toolkit, Pimlico’s groundbreaking paymasters, Stackup’s reliable infrastructure, or ZeroDev’s flexible framework, each provider brings a unique flavor to the table, ensuring that developers and businesses have lots of options to choose from.

Yet, we want to ease your pain of choice by combining all the tables from the article in a unified list of features:

With these advanced tools, we’re on the cusp of achieving a more accessible and decentralized ecosystem. For developers, businesses, and technical users, the trajectory is evident: blockchain technology is evolving rapidly, and with the appropriate instruments, the potential is vast.

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