Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade Goes Viral—26,000 Wallets Jump Onboard as Smart Wallets Hit Escape Velocity
Move over, slow-moving legacy finance—Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade just turned 26,000 wallets into self-custody power users overnight. The smart wallet revolution isn’t coming; it’s already bypassing traditional banking rails.
Key drivers? One-click DeFi integrations and bulletproof security features that make 2008-era banking apps look like dial-up. Wall Street analysts are still debating whether to ’wait and see’—right as retail users lap them with 10x faster adoption curves.
Bottom line: When crypto’s UX finally beats your local credit union, even the skeptics start quietly creating MetaMask accounts. The only thing rising faster than ETH gas fees? The irony of bankers calling this ’niche.’
What are smart accounts?
EIP-7702 is a new standard that lets regular ethereum wallets operate like smart contracts, without losing their original address or flexibility.
Traditionally, Ethereum wallets fell into two categories: Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs), which could send transactions but lacked programmability, and Smart Contracts addresses that could automate tasks but couldn’t initiate transactions.
EIP-7702 blends the two by allowing EOAs to delegate control to smart contracts. This unlocks a wide range of features, including automated spending, scheduled payments, and multi-step actions rolled into one transaction.
More importantly, the update also allows Ethereum users to pay fees in tokens other than ETH, adding a further convenience layer.
Ethereum EOA users can activate these innovative features by authorizing a smart contract that governs their wallet activity. This contract serves as the logic LAYER for transactions.
Meanwhile, those wishing to revert to a basic wallet can point their address to a burn contract, stripping away the programmable features.
EIP-7702 sees rapid uptake
Data from Base analyst 0xKofi shows that smart accounts have gained traction beyond Ethereum and are widely adopted on layer-2 networks like Base and Optimism.
As of press time, 13,013 smart accounts exist on Ethereum’s mainnet. The blockchain network’s layer-2 solution Optimism follows with 5,588, Binance Smart Chain with 5,261, Coinbase-backed Base has 2,851, and Gnosis with 229.
These accounts have collectively triggered nearly 124,000 authorizations since the upgrade launched. BSC leads with 69 active contracts, closely followed by Ethereum at 66. Base, Optimism, and Gnosis record 37, 9, and 6 active contracts.
The data shows that exchange and wallet providers are also embracing the shift.
According to the leaderboard, WhiteBIT has the highest number of smart account authorizations, 6,922, followed by MetaMask, 5,188. OKX Wallet accounts for 3,452, while unidentified sources comprise another 3,988 accounts.
