Why is it said that account abstraction is more important than public chain scalability?

Why is account abstraction considered more crucial than public chain scalability?

Author: Haotian

After watching @VitalikButerin’s speech at ETH HK, I realized that the significance of Account Abstraction has become quite prominent, even surpassing topics like “scaling and L2”.

Why? The core reason is that in the current problems faced by public chains, “abstraction” holds more practical significance than “scaling”.

Scaling aims to solve the “block capacity” issue of Ethereum’s mainnet. Among solutions like Plasm, Validium, and Rollup, Rollup has emerged as the main scaling solution. However, even when scaling reaches a certain level and L2 solutions like Starknet claim to achieve TPS in the tens of thousands, the number of users is not as large as imagined.

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Most new users who enter the crypto world are hindered by a series of differences in user experience compared to web2 products, such as creating wallets, storing private keys, making transfers, paying gas fees, and signing transactions, all of which create a gap that keeps them outside the crypto community.

Account abstraction aims to solve these problems. How to solve them? I won’t go into the details here, as @web3caff_zh’s comprehensive research report explains it clearly. It showcases various products and solutions related to account abstraction wallets and modular tracks, as well as the hardcore workflow of smart contract wallets.

After reading and learning, I increasingly feel that implementing account abstraction in real-world contexts may take longer than expected and go through a phased process:

1) Layer2 chains and other native account abstraction supporting chains are a form of rollup-style abstraction, lowering the entry barriers for users. However, as we can see, the current narrative around Layer2 is not enough to attract a large number of new users. Does this indirectly confirm that “barriers” are not the main obstacles in the industry right now?

2) Innovations like UniswapX and hooks at a protocol layer are also a form of “abstraction”. They combine new paradigms like Permit2+Reactor+Filter, seemingly solving issues like reducing costs and combating MEV. However, the operational barriers are still high. At this stage, it appears that existing DeFi users who are already familiar with the ecosystem have more choices, but they are unlikely to be the turning point for mass adoption by new users.

3) “Intent-centric” narratives, such as those centered around user intent, can be seen as a more advanced form of account abstraction. They incorporate the concept of abstraction into the entire process of user interaction with the blockchain, particularly with the inclusion of AI, taking the narrative to a higher level. However, no matter how beautiful the depiction of intent-centric abstraction is, it will still be the first step towards account abstraction.

Now, here’s the question: Does account abstraction bring new users, or do new users stimulate the implementation of account abstraction? At this stage, it is definitely not a simple cause-effect problem.

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