Base and Ethereum each choose their own standard for account abstraction

Ethereum L1 and Base are each going their own way on account abstraction (AA). The collaboration between the teams behind EIP-8130 and EIP-8141 fell apart last week, meaning the two networks will now develop separate standards. That is reported by Derek Chiang of Ethlabs, one of the researchers involved. The rift exposes a fundamental tension between what Ethereum L1 and Layer 2 networks such as Base expect from their user infrastructure.

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In brief:

• The collaboration between the teams behind EIP-8130 (Base) and EIP-8141 (Ethereum L1) has failed
• Ethereum L1 focuses on censorship resistance, privacy and quantum security, while Base opts for scalability and compliance
• The split places responsibility on wallets and developers to absorb the fragmentation

Collaboration on shared AA standard fails

Account abstraction makes it possible to handle Ethereum accounts more intelligently, for example by sending gasless transactions or logging in with a passkey. Both Ethereum L1 and Base want to support these features, but their requirements diverge.

Chiang explains that Ethereum L1 wants AA transactions that are censorship-resistant, private and quantum-resistant. That calls for a transaction type optimised for post-quantum signature aggregation and privacy protocols. That direction leads to standards such as ERC-4337, EIP-7701 and the latest EIP-8141, also known as Frame Transactions.

Base and other L2 networks impose different requirements. Scalability, adaptability and regulatory compliance are central there. That requires transactions that are readable by the protocol, so that it is clear which types of accounts and transactions are permitted. That led to Base’s EIP-8130.

Fragmentation as a consequence, wallets must bridge the difference

The teams tried to find a shared standard that would work for both networks. All the technical solutions they found required one of the two parties to make concessions on core points. In the end, both Ethereum and Base chose their own vision, causing the collaboration to collapse.

Chiang argues that fragmentation is not necessarily a bad outcome. If avoiding it would mean networks being aligned to the point where they no longer serve their own users well, that would not be an improvement. He has even become more positive about a second approach: building wallets and applications that understand each network’s own transaction types and hide the underlying differences from users.

That does place a considerable burden on wallet and application developers. At the same time, Chiang also sees an opportunity in this: parties that manage to offer a good user experience across multiple networks despite the fragmentation can set themselves apart by doing so.

Chiang also advocates a broader coordination structure in which more parties than just the L1 client developers have influence over shared components of the EVM ecosystem. Currently, L2 networks such as Base have little formal say in decisions taken by the L1, even though those decisions directly affect them. According to him, this lack of early dialogue contributed to the failure of the collaboration. Ethereum is currently at $2.500, a decline of 1.1% over the past 24 hours.