The Ethereum and Base development teams have officially ended their collaboration on a unified account abstraction standard. Ethlabs researcher Derek Chiang confirmed that both parties will now pursue their respective proposals, EIP-8141 and EIP-8130, independently. The decision follows failed negotiations regarding the core requirements for the future mechanism.
The teams cited diverging priorities as the primary cause for the split. Ethereum developers focused on censorship resistance, privacy, and security, while the Base team prioritized scalability, customizability, and regulatory compliance. According to Chiang, neither side was willing to compromise on these fundamental objectives to reach a consensus.
EIP-8141, which is part of the upcoming Hegota upgrade, introduces programmable transaction stages known as frames. This approach allows for flexible signature schemes, including post-quantum security measures, and enables batch transactions where fees can be covered by third parties. It currently holds high priority within the Ethereum Foundation.
EIP-8130, developed by Coinbase engineer Chris Hunter, utilizes a dedicated on-chain Keystore to manage account configurations. This method allows nodes to determine necessary computations without executing arbitrary code, which is designed to support the performance needs of L2 networks. The implementation timeline for this proposal remains unspecified.
If both standards are adopted, wallet developers will be required to support two distinct native transaction formats. While Chiang suggests that applications might be able to handle the format detection automatically to minimize the impact on end users, the move will inevitably increase the technical workload for wallet infrastructure providers.
