Ethereum's developers recently announced that EIP-3074 will be included in an upcoming hard fork upgrade. This proposal has captured significant attention, yet many still wonder: what exactly is EIP-3074? In essence, EIP-3074 introduces a form of smart contract wallet functionality, allowing user assets to be managed through smart contracts instead of solely through Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs). Its primary goal is to drive widespread adoption of smart contract wallets without requiring changes to the core Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The implementation of EIP-3074 opens up a range of new possibilities for the Ethereum ecosystem.
Understanding EIP-3074
EIP-3074 serves as a short-term solution designed to improve the user experience for holders of Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs). This proposal modifies the Ethereum protocol to allow EOAs to delegate their transaction capabilities to a smart contract, referred to as an "invoker." This delegation enables three key features: sponsored transactions, batch transactions, and delegation access. Previously, these features were only available to smart accounts, forcing applications to build and support two separate user experiences—one for EOAs and another for smart accounts.
While EIP-3074 primarily enhances the functionality of EOAs, it also brings several indirect benefits to smart accounts, including smoother migration paths, greater uniformity, and new hybrid account structures. Below is a detailed analysis:
Simplified Migration
By empowering EOAs with new capabilities, users can transition more easily to smart accounts. One of the historical challenges in adopting smart accounts has been the effort and gas costs required to migrate existing assets. EIP-3074 facilitates a smoother migration process by enabling bulk and sponsored transactions in a single action.
Unified User and Developer Experience
Decentralized applications (DApps) can now create improved user experiences without excluding EOAs. This change encourages broader adoption of sponsored transactions and batch processing, and promotes the development of standards around these features. DApps will need to adapt to more flexible account logic, which will better integrate smart account functionalities—such as session keys or multi-signature capabilities—into overall development frameworks.
Hybrid Account Options
EOAs can now designate smart contracts as invokers. This allows a smart account to control an EOA while the EOA’s private key retains ultimate authority and can revoke control if needed. This opens the door to innovative hybrid custody use cases, or even lets EOA users “test” smart account functionality before fully migrating their assets.
How Does EIP-3074 Impact Account Abstraction?
The impact of EIP-3074 on Account Abstraction (AA) is largely positive. In recent months, the community has leaned toward ERC-4337 as the first step toward full AA. This approach has helped bootstrap the developer ecosystem, stabilize specifications and tooling, and generate valuable practical insights. The longer-term plan involves implementing native AA at the Layer 2 level (via proposals like RIP-7560), with eventual introduction to Layer 1 via a similar EIP.
Initial expectations for ERC-4337 were high, which helped attract developer interest and momentum. There are positive signs that adoption is approaching a tipping point, with major exchanges and wallet providers investing in ERC-4337 support. However, inflated expectations also mean that full AA implementation—whether through RIP-7560 or other means—will take longer than initially projected. Currently, there is limited interest or urgency among Layer 2 networks to commit to RIP-7560.
Since migrating users to smart accounts still seems some way off, many in the community have advocated for interim improvements to EOAs. It's important to note that EIP-3074 does not replace ERC-4337; in fact, the two can work synergistically. That said, EIP-3074 does shift some attention away from ERC-4337 and RIP-7560.
Given that EOAs still represent the majority of Ethereum users, this shift affects developer and team priorities. User migration to smart accounts can happen in two ways: either users manually switch, or protocols implement mechanisms to convert EOAs to smart accounts.
EIP-3074 does carry a risk of delaying full AA adoption. While it enhances EOAs, it may reduce the incentive for users to manually switch to smart accounts. It also doesn't directly address the technical challenges of converting EOAs into smart accounts.
Without a companion proposal like EIP-5003, EIP-3074 currently lacks a clear path to full account abstraction and could negatively impact AA adoption. Moreover, after the upcoming Prague/Electra hard fork, the next two-year development window may focus on Verkle tree integration rather than AA-related upgrades. Therefore, including EIP-5003 in the Prague/Electra upgrade could help prevent further entrenchment of EOAs.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main purpose of EIP-3074?
EIP-3074 is designed to improve the functionality and user experience of Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) by allowing them to delegate transaction authority to smart contracts. This enables features like batch processing and sponsored transactions without requiring core changes to the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
How does EIP-3074 relate to ERC-4337?
While EIP-3074 enhances EOAs, ERC-4337 provides a framework for smart contract wallets. The two are complementary and can coexist. EIP-3074 offers short-term improvements, whereas ERC-4337 is part of a longer-term vision for full account abstraction.
Can EIP-3074 help in migrating to smart accounts?
Yes, one of the benefits of EIP-3074 is that it simplifies the migration process from EOAs to smart accounts. Users can perform bulk operations and sponsored transactions, reducing the cost and complexity of moving assets.
What are invokers in EIP-3074?
Invokers are smart contracts that EOAs can delegate their transaction capabilities to. These contracts can then perform actions on behalf of the EOA, such as signing multiple transactions at once or allowing third parties to pay gas fees.
Does EIP-3074 make smart accounts obsolete?
No, EIP-3074 does not make smart accounts obsolete. Instead, it provides a bridge for EOA users to access some smart account features, which may encourage broader eventual adoption of full account abstraction.
What are the risks associated with EIP-3074?
While EIP-3074 introduces valuable features, it may also reduce immediate incentives for adopting full smart accounts. There are also security considerations—users must trust invoker contracts, and developers should implement strict safety checks.
Conclusion
EIP-3074 is poised to significantly alter on-chain interaction patterns on Ethereum. The EVM environment will gain two new opcodes that effectively allow regular addresses to operate with smart contract-like capabilities. How developers leverage this shift remains an exciting area to watch. While EIP-3074 brings innovation and new opportunities, it also introduces challenges and debates around security and long-term ecosystem direction. Developers and users should be aware of these factors and adopt appropriate safety measures when using these new features.