Smart Contract Wallet
A wallet whose funds are controlled by a smart contract rather than a single private key, enabling programmable rules like multiple approvers or spending limits.
A smart contract wallet holds and controls funds through on-chain contract code rather than a single private key signing directly, letting the wallet enforce custom logic such as requiring multiple approvals, daily spending limits, time-locked transfers, or custom recovery rules. A multi-signature wallet (see Kaavon's "Multi-Signature Wallet" glossary definition) is one of the earliest and simplest examples of a smart contract wallet.
The term predates and is broader than a Smart Account (see Kaavon's "Smart Account" glossary definition) specifically built under the ERC-4337 account abstraction standard — a Smart Account is a modern, standardized smart contract wallet designed to support features like paymasters and session keys, while "smart contract wallet" more generally covers any wallet whose logic lives in a contract, regardless of whether it follows a particular account-abstraction standard. The core tradeoff shared by all smart contract wallets is that their added programmability requires interacting with the blockchain through contract calls rather than a simple key-based signature, which has historically meant somewhat higher complexity and gas costs than a basic key-controlled wallet.
Examples
- A smart contract wallet can enforce a rule requiring any withdrawal above a certain size to wait 24 hours before executing, giving the owner time to notice and cancel unauthorized transactions.
- A multi-signature wallet is one of the oldest and most widely used forms of a smart contract wallet, predating the ERC-4337 account abstraction standard by many years.