Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade to make normal wallets ‘smart’ and improve UX

The anticipated Pectra update for Ethereum, scheduled around the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025, introduces enhanced functionalities and improved user experiences (UX) for crypto wallets.

EIP-3074, a proposal for enhancing Ethereum, was given the green light for implementation in the upcoming release. With this change, regular crypto wallets will acquire smart contract capabilities.

One function of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) grants regular external owned accounts (EOAs), which are similar to wallets like MetaMask, the ability to execute smart contracts.

With this feature, users can bundle multiple transactions together for execution with a single signature, or authorize a wallet to manage funds and execute transactions on their behalf, much like the account abstraction mechanism in ERC-4337.

“0xngmi, the anonymous developer of DefiLlama, stated in a recent post on April 11 that the EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) carries a risk: it may now be possible for an attacker to completely drain the funds from an account, including all tokens, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), and DeFi (Decentralized Finance) positions, by obtaining just one incorrect signature.”

Harrison Leggio, a co-founder of Gaslite, commented on X that despite valid security concerns regarding the update, some individuals may unfortunately manage to squander their funds.

“People literally GIVE THEIR PRIVATE KEYS TO TRADING BOTS,” he added.

Software engineer Laurence Day pointed out that the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) with the most practical use was its sponsored transactions feature. This function enabled users to deposit assets into a wallet that didn’t require holding Ether directly, while they could sponsor the gas fees from a contract managing the wallet instead.

An alternative function of EIP-3074 is a social recovery mechanism, which eliminates the requirement for the standard seed phrase consisting of 12 to 24 words.

“Cygaar, an unidentified expert in Web3 technology, shared on X that the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) enables wallets to function as smart contracts through the introduction of two new commands: AUTH and AUTHCALL.”

In simpler terms, AUTH takes care of checking signatures and approving actions. Instead of the message sender being the one who initiates the call to the target contract(s), AUTHCALL uses the originator’s address as the caller. (cygaar)

After Ethereum developers implemented the Denas upgrade a month ago, reducing L2 transaction costs, Pectra’s upcoming update is now being planned.

Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum, announced in early April plans for “cleaning up” the Ethereum network by eliminating outdated and unnecessary data.

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2024-04-12 09:29