A smart account is a wallet that is itself a smart contract. Where a normal account is one private key with full control, a smart account follows the rules in its code: who may sign, how much they may spend, what happens when a key is lost, and who pays the gas. Smart accounts are the building block of account abstraction and make it possible to offer wallets that feel like normal apps.
What Smart Accounts Make Possible
- Passkeys and flexible signers: sign with a fingerprint or face scan through passkeys, with multiple devices, or with several signers for a team.
- Recovery: regain access through guardians, a second device or a time-delayed recovery key, instead of a seed phrase on paper.
- Batching: several actions, such as approve and swap, in one confirmation.
- Limits and policies: daily spending limits, allow-lists of contracts, and session keys for apps and automation.
- Gas sponsorship: the application or a token pays the gas, see gasless transactions.
Build On an Existing Account or Write Your Own?
Audited implementations such as Safe, Kernel and others cover most needs and support modules through standards like ERC-7579 and ERC-6900. We usually build on one of these and add custom modules for your rules, which keeps the amount of new, unaudited code small. A fully custom account makes sense only for requirements that modules cannot express.
Details That Matter
- Counterfactual deployment: the address is known before the account exists, and the account is deployed with the first transaction.
- Signature checks by dApps: smart accounts sign through EIP-1271, so the applications they use must support it; we test that.
- Same address on multiple chains, which users expect.
- Upgrades and migration: a clear, secure path to new versions without moving funds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a smart account the same as a multisig?
A multisig is one type of smart account. Smart accounts can also use a single passkey, limits, recovery and session keys.
Do smart accounts work with ERC-4337?
Yes. Most are built for ERC-4337; with EIP-7702, existing addresses can also gain smart account features.
Are smart accounts more expensive to use?
Slightly, because of extra contract logic, but on layer 2 networks the difference is small, and batching often saves transactions.
Who owns the code?
Ownership of the source code is set out in the contract, and the code can be fully yours, including documentation and tests.
Part of our account abstraction work. Background: what is account abstraction.
Give Your Users a Better Wallet
Tell us who your users are and what they struggle with. We will design a smart account that is safe and easy to use.