Everything you need to know about OKX Wallet's Smart Account feature

If Web3 is going to take over the globe, it's going to have to change. For some, DeFi, NFTs, dApps, DAOs, and everything in between have already been exciting enough to dive in. But, as all crypto users know, this exploration isn't without risk. And that risk can be ‌reason enough to stay away. Enter our latest feature, OKX Smart Account, an extension of our commitment to building the safest, most secure, and most affordable Web3 experience around.

Why Smart Account?

Smart Account pairs the user-friendliness and accessibility of the OKX Wallet with elements of account abstraction (AA). The OKX Wallet is the first major crypto wallet to implement these features, and make use of ERC-4337, an Ethereum standard which allows for simple account abstraction. This standard has allowed us to upgrade our wallet with a host of new features, including…

• The ability to make gas payments with stablecoins

• Social recovery for wallets

• Greater security

Getting started with Smart Account is easy, too. You can spin up an unlimited number of Smart Accounts on top of any primary account you have on OKX Wallet. This will make it easy to:

Pay for gas with stablecoins

OKX Smart Account supports gas payments with ERC-20 tokens such as stablecoins. Users who execute a transaction in their Smart Account will be able to pay that gas fee with either USDC or USDT, even if they don’t have an Ethereum chain’s gas token in their wallet.For a limited time, OKX and Circle are teaming up to reimburse gas fees in USDC, too.

Until October 6, 2023, you can get up to $5 in gas fees reimbursed every day by transacting in your Smart Wallet account.

Easily recover your wallet (coming soon)

(Almost!) done are the days of getting rekt. OKX Smart Account will soon empower users with the option to recover their wallet using a social recovery feature. This means that you'll be able to select a group of trusted people when setting up your wallet — these people will then be able to help you recover your wallet without using a seed phrase. This way, if you ever lose your private key, you can still access your funds — even if they're held in self-custody.

Strengthen your wallet's security

Account Abstraction is as the name suggests: it’s an abstraction from your main account. This basically means that you can use Smart Account to set up a side account for any purpose — which can help you keep your transactions and balances more secure. In the future, OKX plans to build upon account abstraction to offer wallet programmability, an exciting option for keeping your assets safe.

How does Account Abstraction (AA) work?

Every address on the Ethereum blockchain falls into one of two silos: externally-owned accounts (EOAs) and smart contracts. Many of the Web3 wallets today fall into the former — and these are mostly fine, up to the point that something goes wrong. You might forget your private key, be the victim of a phishing attack, or lose funds to some sort of exploit. Unfortunately, these are sometimes side effects of self-custodying your assets — and you can never be too careful.

This is where smart contracts come in: smart contracts are programmable, which means you can use a smart contract for the purpose of custodying assets and performing certain actions (like moving assets or staking them somewhere.)

What this means is that you can program a wallet to obey specific instructions or rules which are set by you. When you spin up a Smart Wallet in the OKX Wallet, we set these rules on your behalf and make it easy to deploy a derivative account using your primary, externally-owned account. This new smart contract should be — in theory — even more secure than your separate EOA wallet.

What is Account Abstraction capable of?

OKX is the first major wallet to support ERC-4337 in a self-custody wallet. However, ERC-4337 is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what account abstraction. That’s because ERC-4337 itself isn't “full account abstraction”. With ERC-4337, one can't deploy a smart wallet without using an externally-owned wallet, which itself comes with inconveniences for onboarding newcomers.

However, it’s an important proposal that moves the needle in the right direction. In the future, account abstraction could bring crypto to the masses by making it a little easier to navigate. Specifically, it could…

• Bundle lots of transactions together, reducing the number of transactions necessary to conduct business on chain.

• It could reduce gas fees for users by bundling or flattening transactions using multicalls.

• It could help prevent hacks, fraud, or unauthorized access through code

• It could allow for greater security and controls on self-custody wallets

• It could allow users to create plug-ins in their wallets

OKX Smart Account realizes much of this potential in Account Abstraction — and by rolling out Smart Account, we hope to bring AA’s best elements in the hands of day-to-day users. For now, that means the ability to pay gas fees with stablecoins, gain greater security and sovereignty over your self-custody assets, and use social recovery features to regain access to your wallet if something goes awry.

How Account Abstraction could help crypto go global

Web3 has profound potential in the global economy, but to welcome the next billion users, it'll need to improve its accessibility. Oftentimes, complexity is a turn-off — and for Web3 to attract users, it'll have to be easier and cheaper to use than it is today. A lot of progress has already been made in making crypto more attractive. However, account abstraction might be one of the most important ingredients in inspiring more users to make the switch.

Are you curious yet? It only takes a few clicks to get the OKX Wallet and try the Smart Account feature for yourself.