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Upgrade Your Externally Owned Account (EOA) with EIP-7702

EIP-7702 introduces a straightforward way for Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) to use smart contract account features. This is a major milestone in Ethereum’s account abstraction journey, enabling existing EOAs to benefit from functionality previously exclusive to smart accounts – such as batching actions, sponsoring transactions, and more.

With Account Kit, you can support this upgrade path directly into your app or wallet. Users will seamlessly access advanced features like transaction batching, session keys, and gas sponsorship, while maintaining their existing EOA address and without having to migrate assets.

Below we will guide you through when to use EIP-7702 and how to leverage Account Kit to upgrade your existing embedded EOAs to a smart contract account, specifically to Modular Account v2.

When to Use EIP-7702?

EIP-7702 is particularly useful in the following scenarios:

  1. You have an app using embedded wallets with EOAs
  2. You have a wallet using EOAs

You can upgrade your users' EOAs directly to a smart account at their current address. This means you don’t have to move assets.

See our full recommendations here.

Gain Smart Account Features

By upgrading to a smart account, you immediately unlock features such as:

  • Batching actions: Execute multiple operations in a single transaction.
  • Gas sponsorship: Let your users pay zero gas by using sponsored transactions, or use custom paymaster contracts that allow you to pay gas in other tokens.
  • Custom session keys: Provide temporary keys to interact with your app without exposing your primary signer, allowing you to skip transaction confirmations.

EIP-7702 Compatible Accounts

Account Kit provides an EIP-7702 compatible smart account, Modular Account v2, that you can upgrade existing EOAs to. This ERC-4337 compatible account is the most gas efficient on the market, fully audited, and supports ecosystem modules for advanced functionality.

Signer Requirements

To use EIP-7702, you need a signer that can generate an authorization signature. Typically, this is implemented as a method called signAuthorization. Regardless of which signer you choose, you'll need to create an instance of a SmartAccountSigner that you can pass to the client.

Out-of-the-Box Support in Account Kit

Alchemy Signer

Alchemy Signer supports signing EIP-7702 authorizations. This means you can create new embedded EOAs with social login that are upgradable to smart accounts seamlessly for your users. See this guide for using simple React Hooks.

If you are a developer without existing embedded wallet users, considering using smart accounts from the start without EIP-7702. Decide what's best for you!

Local Signer

If you have locally managed private keys (e.g. you are a self-custodial wallet), you can use a local account signer to upgrade your EOAs to smart accounts.

types.ts
import { LocalAccountSigner } from "@aa-sdk/core";
 
const privateKey = "0x..."; // Private key
 
const signer = LocalAccountSigner.privateKeyToAccountSigner(privateKey);

Bring a third party wallet or signer

Account Kit provides support for you to bring your existing custom signer or another third-party embedded wallet provider! As long as your signer supports signAuthorization you can connect it to Account Kit and upgrade existing EOAs to smart accounts.

Follow the guide here to understand how to implement the interface: Third Party Signers.

Using EIP-7702

Once your signer is configured and you have a SmartAccountSigner instance, you're ready to use EIP-7702 and upgrade EOAs to smart accounts! Account Kit will handle all of the complexity of delegating your account to a smart account and signing transactions correctly.

  • The smart account client will automatically detect if your account is not yet delegated with 7702 when you send a user operation.
    • If it is not yet delegated, it will request an authorization signature and include that in the submitted user operation.
  • The Alchemy ERC-4337 bundler will automatically include the EIP-7702 authorization with the first user op that your account performs.
example.ts
import { createModularAccountV2Client } from "@account-kit/smart-contracts";
import { sepolia, alchemy } from "@account-kit/infra";
import { signer } from "./signer.js";
 
// Constructing the smart account client
const smartAccountClient = await createModularAccountV2Client({
  mode: "7702",
  transport: alchemy({ apiKey: "your-api-key" }), // Get your API key: https://dashboard.alchemy.com/apps
  chain: sepolia,
  signer,
});
 
// Sending a user operation
const uoHash = await smartAccountClient.sendUserOperation({
  uo: {
    target: zeroAddress,
    value: 0n,
    data: "0x",
  },
});
 
const txnHash = await smartAccountClient.waitForUserOperationTransaction(
  uoHash
);

When can I use it?

EIP-7702 will be supported on Sepolia starting March 5. The Alchemy bundler and Account Kit will have day-one support. Mainnet support is expected to follow shortly after.

Check out the UI Demo to see a live preview of these features in action!

Want to experiment on other testnets before March 5? Reach out to us at [email protected] for early access to experimental networks.