thirdweb’s Smart Wallets powered by Account Abstraction: The Ultimate Guide

Web3 technology is evolving rapidly, and traditional wallets like Metamask and Ledger are no longer the only options for blockchain applications. Enter thirdweb's smart wallets, powered by account abstraction (ERC-4337). These wallets revolutionize the user experience by enabling programmable logic, gasless transactions, and advanced security features.

In this article, we’ll explore the transformative potential of thirdweb smart wallets, compare them to traditional web3 wallets, and explain how you can integrate them into your app to unlock seamless blockchain interactions for your users.

What are thirdweb smart wallets?

thirdweb Connect also offer smart wallets powered by account abstraction, unlocking a whole host of next-generation features using programmable logic. Smart wallets unlock features such as gas sponsorship to implement gasless transactions for your users, batched transactions and custom token spending. These features allow smart wallets to carry out specific functions, like paying for a monthly subscription, or registering specific permissions. Further, they don’t require private key management, lowering the barrier to entry for non-crypto-natives.

But there’s a lot more to it than that, so let’s dive into what thirdweb smart wallets are, why they important, and what sets our wallets apart from the others on the market.

The Evolution of smart wallets

Traditional web3 wallets, hot or hardware wallets like Metamask and Ledger, operate using public and private key pairs. These accounts, also known as EOAs (externally owned accounts), can only be controlled by the owner of the private key, offering great mechanism for security but limiting the evolution of apps.

That said, in the EVM ecosystem, smart contracts also have addresses on the network, much like a wallet. This led to the creation of smart contract wallets, which have a lot more functionality than traditional web3 wallets since they can contain programmable logic.

What can you do with smart wallets vs traditional web3 wallets?

Smart wallets are powered by smart contracts and can execute programmable logic. That might not sound exciting at first, but it’s the reason smart wallets are able to unlock advanced features traditional web3 wallets aren’t capable of, such as time-locked, conditional and batched transactions.

Let’s dive into what makes smart wallets so interesting.

Signless transactions

Instead of requiring signatures like EOAs, smart wallets issue session keys with set permissions. This unlocks countless functionalities, as many apps were limited by the lengthy transaction signing process.

The session key removes the need to sign a new transaction for each interaction. This gives your users the power to interact with the blockchain seamlessly, and in some cases, without even realising it. Plus, with smart wallets you have a massively diverse choice of signing methods: enable passkeys, government id cards, or even zkproofs of email addresses!

Batched Transactions

Traditional web3 wallets can only initiate and execute one transaction at a time, whereas smart wallets are capable of batching transactions. This has multiple important uses. For instance, batched transactions are more gas-efficient, meaning you can save the end-user costs when interacting with your app. Plus, they also make for a smoother user experience, letting you implement features like a shopping cart to let users pay for multiple digital assets at once.

Why implement smart wallets in your app:

Build seamless games

Building an web3 game can be challenging if every onchain action requires a signature. With smart wallets, you can implement signless and gasless transactions. You can also choose the moments your users must approve transactions. That means no interruptions for your players and and seamless user experience.

How to implement gasless transactions with smart wallets →

Scale your app

If you want to scale your app to the millions, you’ll want to save on transaction costs and processing. With smart wallets, you can create batched transactions, saving gas fees and improving throughput for your app and its users. You can also seriously upgrade your app’s user experience, by executing multiple transactions at specific times to remove interruptions in web3 games or implementing basket and checkout mechanisms for onchain ecommerce apps.

How to batch transactions with thirdweb smart wallets →

Create accessible experiences

Blockchain apps can be daunting for newcomers to the crypto space. With smart wallets, you can abstract the blockchain away for non crypto-natives. Account abstraction, leveraged by smart wallets, paired with thirdweb Engine’s paymaster and bundler, allows for sponsoring transactions with custom policies to enable totally gasless transactions. You can also use smart wallets to go completely passwordless, and allow your users to login and transact seamlessly.

Implement thirdweb’s account abstraction paymaster & bundler →

Introduce time-sensitive and conditional transactions

Smart wallets also unlock use cases like time-sensitive and conditional transactions. This ability means they are perfect for introducing complex transaction mechanisms to your app like subscription models, permissions, or trading based on the results of onchain activity.

Simplified account recovery

Unlock effortless multisig capabilities & recover accounts with familiar processes, such as using social profiles or email authentication. Or step up your recovery methods: thirdweb smart wallets allow for social recovery, whereby you can nominate a trusted person to recover your wallet in the case of an emergency; and Multi-Sig recovery, allowing users to recover their accounts using more than one designated wallet.

How do thirdweb smart wallets work?

thirdweb smart wallets are upgradeable, secure account factory smart contracts that are ready to use out of the box. Since they are pre-audited, you can enjoy effortless functionality without compromising on security. But not only that, with thirdweb smart wallets, the infra is built in: they are compatible with thirdweb Engine, and also external bundler & paymasters. This means you can upgrade your app to incorporate gasless transactions or paying gas fees with ERC-20 tokens with ease.

thirdweb smart wallets are also extremely flexible to fit your app’s needs. For example, it’s easy to customize the wallet’s user experience and you can configure rules on gas sponsorship to prevent abuse and spam.

Finally, thirdweb smart wallets offer metered billing so you never worry about running out of funds. Just allow your users to transact freely and we’ll simply bill you at the end of the month!

How to get started with thirdweb smart wallets

To get started with thirdweb's account abstraction wallets, here’s what you have to do:

1. Obtain an API Key: Sign up on the thirdweb dashboard and generate a free API key. This key is essential for accessing thirdweb's complete web3 development toolkit.

2. Choose Your Development Environment: Select the SDK that aligns with your project's technology stack. thirdweb offers SDKs for various environments, including React, TypeScript, .NET, and Unity.

3. Integrate the SDK:

   • React: Incorporate the ConnectButton component into your application. Configure the accountAbstraction property with your desired blockchain network and set sponsorGas to true if you wish to sponsor transaction fees for your users.

     thirdweb docs

   • TypeScript: Set up a Node.js project and install the thirdweb package. Utilize the SDK to create a smart account, connect it to a personal wallet, and perform on-chain actions.

     thirdweb docs

   • .NET: Use the SmartWallet.Create method to instantiate a smart wallet, enabling advanced blockchain interactions, including gasless transactions.

   • Unity: Implement the SmartWallet class to deploy a smart account for users, allowing them to interact with your application seamlessly.

4. Configure Smart Accounts: Set up your application to allow users to connect to their smart accounts using any personal wallet, including in-app wallets for easy onboarding. The system will automatically deploy individual account contracts for your users when they perform their first on-chain transaction.

5. Enable Next-Gen Features (Optional): After configuring your smart wallet, you can enable features such as Sponsored Transactions.

Smart wallets: more than just web3 wallets

thirdweb smart wallets are more than just an upgrade to traditional web3 wallets—they’re a game-changer for blockchain applications. By leveraging account abstraction, these wallets unlock innovative features like gas sponsorship, batched transactions, and signless interactions, making blockchain technology more accessible to users and developers alike. Whether you're building a game, scaling your app, or creating accessible user experiences, thirdweb smart wallets provide the tools to simplify account management and enhance functionality. With a straightforward integration process and powerful capabilities, there’s no better time to bring the next generation of wallets to your app. So what are you waiting for? Get building with thirdweb’s smart wallets!