Op-ed: The unspoken Ethereum revolution: Are EOAs becoming obsolete?

Under the radar, one of the most significant changes to the Ethereum ecosystem has been announced with little to no community reaction. Account abstraction is a core advancement in web3 account management, but the current roadmap brings a new goal — to remove Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) entirely from the Ethereum ecosystem.

The term account abstraction refers to the process of abstracting away the complexity of a web3 account to create a more user-friendly experience for the end user. Initially, the goal was to generalize the web3 account model so that all accounts are treated similarly — regardless of whether they are EOAs or smart contract accounts. However, the Ethereum Foundation appears to have decided that there is no room for EOAs in the ecosystem’s future, favoring smart contract wallets as the default account model for users.

EIP-4337 & Account Abstraction

Security Fellow for the Ethereum Foundation, Yoav Weiss, announced the launch of EIP-4337 while speaking at ETHDenver. The update to the Ethereum network upgrades the capabilities of smart contract wallets with elements of account abstraction, including decentralized bundlers, token fee payment, an alternative mempool, and other account abstraction features.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin originally introduced the EIP in September 2021 when he shared a concept on the Ethereum message board with the following message:

“An account abstraction proposal which completely avoids the need for consensus-layer protocol changes, instead relying on a separate mempool of UserOperation objects and miners running either custom code or a bundle marketplace.”

However, one key aspect of EIP-4337 that has seemingly gone unnoticed by many is the move toward removing EOAs entirely. The documentation for the EIP on the Ethereum Foundation website states that a core motivation for the upgrade is to “completely remove any need at all for users to also have EOAs.”

“Achieve the key goal of account…