EIP-7702
An Ethereum upgrade letting a standard externally owned account temporarily attach smart contract code to itself, gaining programmable features without needing a separate smart account.
EIP-7702 is an Ethereum upgrade that lets a standard externally owned account — a regular account controlled by a single private key, as opposed to a smart account (see Kaavon's "Smart Account" glossary definition) — temporarily attach smart contract code to itself, gaining programmable features like batched transactions, gas sponsorship, or custom spending rules, without needing to migrate to an entirely separate smart contract wallet address first.
This offers an alternative, complementary path to some of the same account-abstraction-style functionality that ERC-4337 (see Kaavon's "ERC-4337 (Account Abstraction)" glossary definition) provides, but implemented as an actual protocol-level change rather than through ERC-4337's separate mempool-and-bundler system — letting users gain programmable account features on their existing, already-funded externally owned account address, rather than needing to transfer assets to a new smart account address entirely. The two approaches aren't mutually exclusive, and various wallet designs have explored combining elements of both to offer users flexible paths to programmable account functionality.
Examples
- A user could use EIP-7702 to temporarily attach smart contract logic to their existing externally owned account, gaining features like transaction batching without needing to migrate to a new smart account address.
- EIP-7702 implements account-abstraction-style functionality as an actual protocol-level change, distinguishing it from ERC-4337's separate mempool-and-bundler approach that requires no consensus changes.