Bankless - StarkWare Sessions #3 | Account Abstraction & EIP 4337 with Yoav Weiss

Starting point is 00:00:01 Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. And sometimes that frontier is at a conference. Like last weekend, where over a thousand developers, founders, builders, and investors attended the Starkware sessions in Tel Aviv in order to participate in growing the Starknet ecosystem. This is Bankless's Starkware Session series, which are nine byte-sized episodes interviewing the founders, builders, and ecosystem developers of Starknet. Every once in a while in the crypto world, a conference happens. but not everyone is available to attend.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Don't worry, bankless has your back, because I go to basically every conference that's out on the frontier, and I bring an entire podcast studio in tow with me in order to make sure that the bankless nation stays on the frontier of what's happening in crypto. In this episode, I'm talking to Joav Weiss, who is a security reacher at the Ethereum Foundation and has been leading the charge behind ERC 4337,

Starting point is 00:00:54 which hopes to eventually turn into an EIP, which will become a part of core Ethereum. What does ERC 4337 do? It enables account abstraction on the Ethereum layer one. Starknet and other ZK roll-ups are going to be able to beat Ethereum layer one to the punch when it comes to enabling account abstraction and smart contract wallets, which is good because then they can come back and teach the Ethereum layer one about what needs to be built and how ERC 4337 needs to be constructed in order to have the best smart contract wallet experience possible. So this is the second of two account abstraction smart contract. wallet-related interviews, the first being Mahdi from Bravo's. So I hope that

Starting point is 00:01:33 these two interviews can really take you from zero to 60 about the world of smart contract wallets and how they will eventually come to dominate all of crypto, starting with Starknet and ZK roll-ups, moving on to other layer twos, and then eventually to the Ethereum main net. I hope you enjoy this interview with Yoav, but first

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Starting point is 00:03:53 Great, great, thank you. What brings you to Starkware sessions all the way out here in Tel Aviv? I actually live here. Oh, okay. So it's just down the street for you? Yeah. Like literally 20 minutes from here. Oh, that's super convenient.

Starting point is 00:04:07 I am very jealous. It took me 12 hours to get here. So what's going on as it relates to just Starkware, Starknet, and what brings you here specifically? Like, what is going on here in this conference that really interests you? So I've been focused on account upstaction, as you know. and Starknet has this embedded in their chain. So it's great and it's been great collaborating with them.

Starting point is 00:04:33 So I'm here to talk to people about it, to help people understand it, to learn about it from people, to talk to wallets. There are many wallets here that are worth talking to. And so this is, as far as I can tell, really, the Starknet is really where the account extraction is actually coming into fruition. It is kind of a conversation of EIPs on the Ethereum layer one, but on Starknet, it's actually being developed as teams. And we have the Argent team,

Starting point is 00:05:03 we have the Bravo's team. So what's it like watching a lot of this account abstraction theory turn into practice here on Starknet? So I've been also involved in that. I'm not watching it from the sidelines. And Starknet account obstruction is actually based on the same ideas as as ERC 4337. It uses the same protection, the same protection, the same way to the central light, to the central light things.

Starting point is 00:05:29 So it's just easier when it comes to a, when we're, when building a new network, it's easier to build it into the network. So, you know, we started the ERC in the form of an ELC and not an EAP because it's easier to

Starting point is 00:05:45 standardize it across different networks. And then Starknet has been the first network to actually put it into the consensus, but I expect that the same will happen in other layer tools, and over time we'll even get into Ethereum, but this will take time, you know. Is there, so what is the frontier of account abstraction, the frontier of smart contract was? What have you learned, or what are you experiencing perhaps as a result of this conference specifically, but overall on Starknet, like, what's the new, what's the new thing in the world

Starting point is 00:06:14 of account abstraction? So we see different use cases. These use cases having discussed before, but now they become more feasible. And when it's done at the network level, more efficiently, it really opens up the design space. The design space has been there all along, but now that it can be done more cheaply and efficiently, we're starting to see it really happen. And can you just walk me again and the bankless listeners

Starting point is 00:06:42 about the synergies between specifically a ZK roll-up and account extraction? Why is ZK. Roll-up such an awesome fertile ground for account abstraction? I'm not sure it has to do with the fact that it's a Zika roll-up. It could be done on another roll-up, but the EVM roll-ups try to stay EVM equivalent initially, so it's harder to make changes and deviate from the standard.

Starting point is 00:07:09 And in the case of Starkware, since it's not EVM to begin with, it's easier to experiment. You don't have to obey any sense. Any past wars? Okay, so yeah, I want to unpack that a little bit, because I think that's a good way to learn something cool about the world of Ethereum and all the, also as layer two's.

Starting point is 00:07:29 Both arbitram and optimism attempt to be EVM equivalent. And now if you want to be EVM equivalent, you have to follow, like, what is the EVM on the Ethereum layer one? And the Ethereum layer one is not account abstraction enabled because that's something that we're working on. And so perhaps why account abstraction and smart contract wallets like Bravo's and Argent, have built, actually planted their feet in the world of Starknet, is that Starknet never intended to be EVM equivalent.

Starting point is 00:07:58 They always forked off and made Cairo, or just like where EVM, perhaps not even compatible, they're just a different EVM chain, and that's why they've been able to kind of leapfrog in the world of ZK of a construction. Is all that right? Yeah, it certainly made it easier for them, but I think that we'll see other layer tools,

Starting point is 00:08:20 other layer tools, the EVM equivalent layer tools. We see them as a fertile ground for innovation too. I expect that in the future, many EIPs will be experimented with. I mean, EIPs not as in ELCs, but actually protocol changes. I think we'll see more and more experimentation on other EVM networks. And it's quite likely that we'll see optimistic roll-ups, also spinning up a separate roll-up to experiment with this protocol-level account obstruction. How are the people that are working on smart contract walls in account abstraction?

Starting point is 00:08:57 How are they leveraging you and your expertise here at the StarCware sessions? How are you helping with them? What are the conversations like? Yeah, so I've been talking to them about use cases since I've been thinking about account obstruction for a few years now, and I'm talking about how they could use, how it could use ERC 4337. There are some limitations during validation which are absolutely required in order to be able to decentralize it.

Starting point is 00:09:25 So sometimes it's not trivial to work around these limitations. But so far we haven't encountered any use case that couldn't be solved with some creativity. So when I'm talking to all the developers, I often find myself helping to design around these constraints without sacrificing censorship resistance. Do you think that because StarCware seems to be, or StarkNet seems to be kind of a head in the world of account abstraction,

Starting point is 00:09:55 that a lot of this learnings here is going to be exported out to the rest of Ethereum? Is that kind of how you think it might go? Yes, I think the wallets that are being developed, the wallets that are being developed for Starknet right now are going to show up on other networks as we make it more possible. And that's part of the reason why it's so important to standardize it so that we have feature parity. Because wallet developers, usually they don't have the resources to develop many different wallets. So we should try to standardize it at the chain level so that wallet developers can deploy their wallets everywhere.

Starting point is 00:10:32 And so, yeah, there are multiple wallets. I've named a couple of Gros and Argent that are using smart contract wallets on SarkNet. and I'm assuming because there's already a growing ecosystem on Starknet, we'll actually be able to learn from their learnings, and they're going to figure out what the best form factor for our account abstraction is on Starknet. And because just the pace of iteration on Starknet so fast, that's actually how we're going to learn how to apply this to the rest of Ethereum. Is that a fair take?

Starting point is 00:11:02 Yes, I think experimenting through actual products and actual users is the best way. We shouldn't do it in a vacuum. So having Argent and Bravos and others doing this is absolutely essential for making it happen. They're also adding use cases that I've been advocating for a long time and are really difficult to do without protocol level changes. For example, Bravo's is doing, they let you sign from the secure enclave of your phone, which is something that we already saw an implementation back in Bogota. one of the Hackathon projects implemented this in Solidity

Starting point is 00:11:41 and deployed it on an EVM chain but it's really expensive to do if you don't have support for it from the network. So I think that we're going to see more of these use cases and people will optimize them and we'll see them moving to other chains. So I've noticed I was at the hacker house my first day here and a lot of a computer people

Starting point is 00:12:03 like I was watching developers tinker around on their computers and instead of the Metamask icon, they have the Argent icon in their top right as their extension. And so do you think that actually being able to innovate at the smart contract wall level, is that going to be the thing that actually is pretty disruptive to the Metamask dominance across the rest of Ethereum? Yes, I think the move to a counter obstruction

Starting point is 00:12:27 is an opportunity for disruption in the wallet space that could definitely benefit from some disruption, some more variety of projects. But I think that we'll also see Metamask doing a lot of interesting things in this space. Is Metamask going to be doing account abstraction? Well, you should ask them, you know, they are here, but I believe that we'll see some innovation

Starting point is 00:12:53 in that space for Metamask as well. Okay, well, the competition is on. Yoav, what else is going to... Why competition? It's not... Competition is always good for the user, right? Like, all of these people want to have, like, as much mind share as possible. Do you think, like, wallets might stratify into, like, different use cases?

Starting point is 00:13:11 As in, like, maybe this isn't exactly right, but Bravo's is the gaming smart contract wallet. And Argent is the DFI smart contract wallet. Or does that not really make sense? Yeah, it does make sense because with account obstruction, you can make the wallet as simple as you like or as complex as you like. Depending on, for example, if you have a complex authorization needs, or you need to enforce certain policies, then you might want a more complex wallet,

Starting point is 00:13:37 but as a new user, you just want the simplest possible wallet where you add your phone, you don't know what a private key is, and you can just start using it. But what's more important is that with account obstruction, you'll be able to set the implementation, you'll be able to upgrade.

Starting point is 00:13:53 So as a new user who doesn't know anything about crypto, you'll probably want to start with the easiest one to use, but maybe as you accumulate more value in the account, and now you have assets, you need to protect them, and you have better understanding. Now maybe you're going to upgrade it, and you're going to upgrade in place. You're not going to move your assets elsewhere. You're just going to switch from a very simple wallet to one that gives you more optionality. I really like the idea of a wallet, a smart contract wallet can be as simple or as complex as anyone really wants it to be.

Starting point is 00:14:24 But we're starting, of course, at the very beginning of this story, because we're still so early in the world of account abstraction. What are the first use cases that you think are really going to be onboarded into these smart contract wallets? So we already see things like social recovery that Argent has been doing for a long time. And social recovery is often misunderstood. It doesn't necessarily mean that your friends are going to recover it for you. It could be a ledger device in a bank vault that you're only going to use if you lost access. And we're going to see some use cases, such as for the... For example, session keys is something that I really like,

Starting point is 00:15:01 that since you can have authorization, not just authentication, meaning that each key can be authorized to do certain things, it makes sense that, for example, you have an NFT in your, you have an NFT that you want to use in a game, but you don't want the game, you don't want the game adapt to be able to transfer it. So you could have a key that only, that the browser keeps, so you don't need to manually sign each transaction, but you only, but so, but the key can only interact.

Starting point is 00:15:28 act with the game. And if you actually want to transfer your NFTs, that's a separate key, and it requires manual signing. So we're going to see such use case as well. But really, the possibilities are endless. I mean, I can talk for hours about different use cases here. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm getting like this image of a smart contract wallet that really starts off as like a blank slate, but you can plug more and more stuff into it. Is there, is it logical to think of there being like a plug-in store for your smart contract? wallet, is that like a coherent thought? Yes, that's something that we've been

Starting point is 00:16:03 talking about. We didn't want to push it into the same ERC, but I think we will need an ELC for it to standardize the way plugins work. And then you'll be able to get plugins. The way I see, the plugins should be associated with a certain authentication, with a certain

Starting point is 00:16:19 key. So this, and then the session keys are actually just a sub-use case of this. It's just one plugin. And then you can have a plugin that allows, for example, performing trades. If you want to implement a more efficient decks with an order book, you could let it, you could authorize it to perform trades without you actually signing it.

Starting point is 00:16:39 But so there can be many such use cases. And each of these, I believe, should be a plugin. These plugins will not necessarily be written by the same person who wrote the account, you know, the wallet. For example, Uniswap could write a plugin that helps you do things on Uniswap and you could add it to any of the wallets that support the standard. But this requires some thinking. For example, these wallets will all need to use diamond storage.

Starting point is 00:17:06 It's an EAP that helps you make sure that different contracts running in the same address space don't step on each other's toes. So I think that, and I've been advocating it to wallet, telling them that they should be using diamond storage from the start so that later they can use such plugins. will our wallets always be in this like browser extension form factor or do you think other like will access our wallet in a different way because like to me the browser extension wallet is kind of annoying is that going to be the future or there's going to be something else in the way that we engage our smart contract wallets do you have any thoughts on this uh i think it doesn't it doesn't have to be a browser extension and i like i like having mobile apps do this kind of this kind of work and i think it should be, and it can be done for the browser, it can be done even from a, from an app running

Starting point is 00:17:58 on your PC or your Mac. But I think, but I think it's important, it's important not to, not to lock yourself into a mobile app, for example, because since I really, I really hate censorship, and I think that both Apple, both Apple and Google have a permission system where, if you want, where they could eliminate, they could eliminate the wallet from their app store if they want to. So I think you should have a way to recover from it and to switch to a new implementation. So at the very least, you should be able to do this from your browser. Amazing. I know you're always like head into the world of account extraction,

Starting point is 00:18:34 but what in addition to account abstraction have you been paying attention to lately? Sorry? What in addition to account abstraction have you been paying attention to lately? Yeah, so I'm a security researcher, and I've been working on other security-related projects. and I also care a lot about censorship resistance in Ethereum in general, so I'm thinking a lot about PBS, about proposal bills operation, and about inclusion list. And the only thing is going to come together at some point, because with the counter- obstruction, we'll also need to have inclusion list,

Starting point is 00:19:08 and it's much more complicated to do in this context. We won't get into all the complexities right now, but it's, so there are some interplay between these topics. If listeners have gotten their interest piqued about the conversation that we've just had and they want to learn more, where do you recommend for them to go? Any resources that they should be pointed to?

Starting point is 00:19:31 So we're building a website for ERC 4337, but it's not up yet. And they can also follow me on Twitter. I occasionally tweet about some ideas. We have some telegram groups where we have some telegram groups where there are very active discussions about account obstruction. You have, thank you so much.

Starting point is 00:19:51 I appreciate it. Cheers. Yeah.

Bankless - StarkWare Sessions #3 | Account Abstraction & EIP 4337 with Yoav Weiss

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