Account Abstraction

Abstract uses Account Abstraction as a conceptual framework for building smart-contract applications. Our central idea is that, instead of building a monolithic smart-contract that users interact with, you let the smart-contract interact with the user’s account instead. Let’s dive a bit deeper into this concept and how it applies to Abstract’s own Abstract Accounts.

What is Account Abstraction?

In traditional blockchain interactions, a transaction is typically initiated by a user signing some data with their private key and transmitting that data (and its signature) to an endpoint for validation. Account abstraction modifies this process by making the transaction initiation and validation programmable. Essentially, it allows the transaction logic to be customized within a smart-contract, vastly extending the scope of UX possibilities.

The Abstract SDK provides what we call an Abstract Account, an extensible smart-contract wallet capable of holding tokens and interacting with other smart contracts. The ownership structure of an Abstract Account is customizable to fit your use-case.

In the next section we’ll dig into the architecture of Abstract Accounts.