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Ethereum is one of the most popular and widely-used blockchain protocols. While its native coin ether (ETH) can be used to make payments like cryptocurrencies such as litecoin (LTC) or bitcoin cash (BCH), Ethereum was designed to be a far more flexible and feature-rich blockchain protocol. Ethereum allows for the execution of smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). It also allows for tokens to be built on top of its core protocol.

One of the most innovative ERC standards to date is the ERC-4337 standard. Like earlier token standard releases, it was designed to enable additional features and options that werent possible using the previously available token options. Ethereums tokens are one reason it has garnered such a sizeable share of the crypto market. These Ethereum Request for Comment (ERC) tokens create concrete rules and frameworks that allow ERC tokens to be sent and received on the Ethereum blockchain. One of the most popular token standards is ERC-20, which allows you to issue new fungible tokens on the Ethereum protocol. Another popular option is the ERC-721 token standard, which allows for the issuance of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This is one reason why many of the most popular NFT collections and fungible tokens are found on Ethereum.

There are a number of ERC token standards (ERC-777, ERC-2222, and more) on Ethereum, with new suggestions called Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) continually being proposed and discussed. Some EIPs are ultimately rejected, while others end up being released on Ethereum. Once an EIP is improved and implemented, it becomes an ERC (ERC-4337 was previously EIP-4337).

Funded through Ethereum Foundation grants, the launch of ERC-4337 was announced at WalletCon 2023. Lets discover what ERC-4337 enables on the Ethereum protocol and why the community decided it needed to be approved.

ERC-4337 makes enhanced crypto transaction options possible. To differentiate it from standard crypto transactions, these ERC-4337 transactions are referred to as UserOperations. This sort of blockchain enhancement would typically be done through a blockchain update and not through a new ERC standard release (more on that later).A core new feature is that it allows for account abstraction on Ethereum in a decentralized manner (more on that below). Additionally, it allows for dApp developers to partially or fully subsidize transaction fees for users; on many dApps the user must pay these fees. ERC-4337 also allows users to pay fees with ERC-20 tokens (as opposed to ETH). This should create a decentralized fee market for smart contract operations. On top of that, it enables some privacy-preserving features and supports the use of aggregated signatures. ERC-4337 is also available on networks compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) such as Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, and several others.

For sending transactions, ERC-4337 enables you to bundle (combine) multiple transactions to save time and lower transaction fee costs. You will also be able to pre-approve transactions in an automated way. Most current wallets require you to manually approve every transaction. Now, you can create review processes that require additional manual approval only for certain transactions such as transactions that send over a specified amount of crypto (more than $1,000 USD equivalent, for example).

Through a process known as account abstraction, ERC-4337 allows for the use of smart accounts that are expected to be more user friendly for beginners. This update is expected to catalyze crypto adoption as technical barriers to entry are continually being lowered or removed. While somewhat technical, in essence, account abstraction turns a users crypto wallet into a smart contract-enabled account. For this reason, many dont call ERC-4337 a token standard and simply call it an ERC standard; it doesn't really fit categorically with the previous ERC token standards.

One core benefit is how account abstraction simplifies both the use and creation of wallets. Prior to ERC-4337, users generally had to memorize a seed phrase (or store this phrase offline) to create a backup of their crypto wallet. Through abstraction, a crypto wallets private keys can be stored on a smartphones standard security module. This would create what some would consider a hardware wallet within their phone although some express concerns about a smartphones vulnerabilities through the touchscreen or some other avenue.

ERC-4337 allows for the use of smart accounts that are expected to be more user friendly for beginners.

ERC-4337 allows you to sign transactions biometrically through a fingerprint or face scan as an additional safety measure. Should you lose your phone, you could regain access to your account through the use of time-locked social recovery. This requires multiple users to sign a recovery transaction through a multi-signature (multi-sig) wallet. You could give a group of trusted friends or family the ability to regenerate your account. If that doesnt suit you, you could pay a commercial third-party service to recover your account should the need arise.

Losing their wallet and the associated crypto and being unable to recover it is one fear people have when it comes to using non-custodial crypto wallets. There are horror stories of people losing large sums of crypto in this way. This safeguard is designed to give you some of the features and peace of mind you may have when using a bank without having to trust a bank thus preserving the core crypto ethos of trustlessness and permissionlessness.In general, the implementation of account abstraction is intended to provide two benefits for wallets:

For many blockchain protocols, changes require a code update to the blockchain that is called a fork. Oftentimes, there is heated debate about whether to implement changes to a blockchain. These updates sometimes lead to a blockchain splitting into two separate networks. Called a hard fork, this has led to the 2017 Bitcoin fork that created Bitcoin Cash and even a previous splitting of Ethereum (which created Ethereum Classic). The other fork option is a soft fork. Soft forks are backwards compatible giving users and validators the option to implement an update or not.

With the time and work that has gone into transitioning Ethereum from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network (known as The Merge), the proposal for ERC-4337 noted that it may be some time before Ethereum goes through another significant update. For that reason, ERC-4337 was implemented as a way to enable updates that dont change the core Ethereum protocol. Taking this innovative approach has ostensibly saved a lot of time and effort. In addition, ERC-4337 will not create compatibility issues in the way some blockchain forks have.

By taking these changes to a higher-abstraction layer (the ERC-4337 standard itself), it negates the need to implement changes to the core Ethereum protocol (the Ethereum blockchain). While this has sped up the implementation of account abstraction on Ethereum, the goal is to eventually implement this feature into the primary Ethereum protocol.

What ERC-4337 Means for Ethereum Adoption

With its notable medley of ERC-20 tokens, the popularity of ERC-721 NFTs, and the outsized presence of Ethereum within decentralized finance (DeFi), ERC-4337 will likely help Ethereum remain one of the premier blockchains as the enhanced functionality will benefit all of these disparate but connected niches within the wider Ethereum ecosystem.

With crypto wallet security and user friendliness at the forefront of the ERC-4337 update, we may end up seeing newcomers to the crypto space choose to start with Ethereum (and EVM-compatible blockchains) as opposed to other blockchain ecosystems. Enticed by the core benefits and ease of use enabled by ERC-4337, this may allow Ethereum to keep or grow the already sizable market share that it occupies within the wider crypto market. For other blockchains to remain competitive and gain market share, they may need to incorporate their own versions of higher-level account abstraction. This will let them appeal to new crypto users that want to experience Web3 with the ease of use and simplicity more commonly found in the Web2 experience.

Read more:

Ethereums ERC-4337 Standard: A Game-Changing, User-Friendly Innovation - Decrypt

MATIC network and MINA protocol are two projects that recently rolled out upgrades and a roadmap to boost scaling and decentralization through the zero-knowledge (zk) hype. A major Ethereum upgrade is slated to occur on April 12, this is a driver for narratives surrounding Ethereum scaling and the zk hype.

Polygon recently forayed into a zero-knowledge solution zkEVM and MINA protocol published its roadmap, boosting faster and low-latency transactions through zero-knowledge programmability.

Also read: Ethereum (ETH) price volatility increases with upcoming Ethereum token unlock

MINA protocol, one of the lightest blockchains in the world, announced its roadmap. The zero-knowledge Layer 1 blockchain MINA is focused on developing systems with trust minimization, ZK-Programmability, and enhanced performance.

MINAs roadmap for ZK Programmability is focused on boosting scalability and privacy for the project.

ZK Programmability

MINAs roadmap launch failed to trigger a recovery in the protocols native asset. MINA is exchanging hands at $0.72, yielding 4% losses for holders over the past week.

The protocol intends to capitalize on the zk hype and bring their zk programmability solution to mainnet in 2023.

Polygon network recently launched zkEVM, the layer 2 protocols take on scaling the Ethereum blockchain with higher efficiency. Polygons zkEVM has a Total Value Locked (TVL) of $1.1 million, according to data from DeFi aggregator DeFiLlama.

Total TVL in Polygons zkEVM

Data from Nansen shows a consistent decline in the daily active users and activity on both Polygons zkEVM and zkSync. However, in terms of market dominance, zkSync controls 57.7% of all activity on zkEVM networks.

DAU and market share of zkSync, StarkNet and Polygon zkEVM

StarkNet is second to zkSync, coming in at second place with 25% of market share in the zk ecosystem. MATIC network lags behind and is limited to less than 2% of the zk market share.

Crypto Twitter is filled with speculation from analysts predicting an airdrop in zkSync. The zk narrative has gained traction, driving users and higher TVL to the ecosystem, as noted above. Projects like MINA protocol are working on launching roadmaps and capitalizing on the zk narrative to gain higher market share and users. Ethereum's upcoming upgrade Shanghai hard fork has fueled the hype surrounding the altcoin blockchain's scalability. This supports the narrative of zk projects and scalability of the ETH blockchain.

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MATIC and MINA protocol ride the zk hype ahead of major Ethereum upgrade - FXStreet

The blockchain interoperability concept made rounds during the 2021 crypto bull run, and was championed by the likes of the Cosmos network. Unfortunately, they had to pump the brakes when crypto winter came. However, Cosmos is now attempting to revive the hype once again.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the Cosmos Profit Calculator

Cosmoss latest announcement revealed its intentions to start pushing towards building and expanding an interconnected internet of blockchains again. The network disclosed that it plans to work on the implementation of IBC with solidity, a move that will make it possible for Ethereum [ETH] to be connected to Cosmos.

Cosmos further noted that IBC-solidity will enable the transfer of data, tokens, and messages to multiple blockchains through IBC. This includes enterprise Ethereum and all the EVM-compatible blockchain networks.

The Ethereum network can be considered as the most popular blockchain and also the most adopted blockchain network at the moment. Additionally, many networks hope to tap into its robust liquidity. This will become much easier to conduct via the IBC as soon as it gets connected to Ethereum. The overall goal is to facilitate a smoother flow of value across different blockchain networks.

Unsurprisingly, the announcement about Ethereum came just a few days after Cosmos revealed its global expansion plans. From a strategic point of view, onboarding Ethereum before executing a global expansion plan might make Cosmos and the IBC more attractive to other potential prospects.

The demand for ATOM should go up as more blockchains get connected to the Cosmos hub. This is because the coin is necessary for projects looking to join the Cosmos ecosystem. As far as ATOMs performance is concerned, at press time, the token was still trading at a slight premium as compared to its December 2022 lows. However, it delivered sideways action for the last 12 days or so.

ATOMs relative strength improved over the last few days and was attempting to push above the 50% Relative Strength Index (RSI) level. This was of course backed by accumulation as indicated by the Money Flow Index (MFI). Furthermore, ATOM could also witness a bullish breakthrough if it manages to break past the RSI mid level. Failure to do so may lend favor to the bears.

How many are 1,10,100 ATOMs worth today

ATOMs volatility was at its highest four-week peak at mid-March. Volatility has since then been declining since then. This reflected the lack of momentum as seen in the last two weeks. Similarly, weighted sentiment remained low suggesting a lack of confidence in the market.

However, there were some positive sentiments such as the growing development activity metric. This combined with the Binance funding rates recovery confirmed that demand was recovering in the derivatives segment.

Things may turn out favorably if Cosmos proceeds and succeeds with its plans this year. Such an outcome would certainly boost ATOMs potential value.

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All about Cosmos, its latest plans for IBC, and how Ethereum fits the bill - AMBCrypto News

EthOS, a native operating system that integrates with the ethereum blockchain, has launched a major new release.

ethOS 2.1 comes with a System Wallet secure enclave, a mint app, a light node indicator and easier chain switching, says Markus Haas, the co-founder of EthereumPhone.

This is a fork of the popular fork of Android, called LineageOS, making ethOS open source too and available on Github.

To install it, you need an OEM Unlocked Google Pixel 3, 3XL, or 5a, with this being a bridge to the teams ambitions to launch a full on hardware device called the Ethereum Phone (Phone).

The operating system, as youd expect, has a native eth wallet and some blockchain capabilities like insta NFT minting a picture you take with your phone.

It connects with the blockchain roughly the same way as most wallets do, through a light node which instead of downloading every block, downloads only the block headers containing a summary of the information within the blocks.

These used to be called SPV wallets, and they still are in bitcoin, that standing for Simplified Payment Verification. They have some theoretical problems, but for more than a decade now they have run without problems in practice.

It integrates with the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) natively as well, something that then brings us to the actual potential unique selling point.

This operating system integrates the little known Extensible Message Transport Protocol (XMTP), which describes itself as an open protocol, network, and standards for secure, private web3 messaging.

Because the XMTP network persists messages, and those messages are tied to web3 identities as opposed to a specific client app, each web3 identity has an interoperable inbox that it can access using any client app built with XMTP, the project says.

So a kind of an open chatapp, like the defi dapps but this doesnt use a blockchain or the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It does have nodes however.

The nodes provide a message API that enables client apps built with the XMTP client SDK to communicate with the XMTP network. The nodes use Waku node software to connect to other nodes and form a peer-to-peer network to relay and store envelopes submitted and requested by client apps.

These nodes are currently closed source and are operated only by XMTP Labs, though theyre working towards opening them up to make it a fully decentralized network.

So you can connect your ENS to XMTP through ethEOS and. party on? Making this whole infrastructure from start to finish, well once the hardware phone is built, all crypto native as much as it can be.

So giving a vivid indication of the expansion of this space in seemingly unrelated areas, though crypto is making some significant advances even in what might look like further out areas.

One such area is data replication, like database replication for say MySQL but other sorts too with a full on 200 pages long dissertation discussing just how crypto is contributing to that space and in turn how new research can contribute to crypto.

The operating system therefore on its own might look like little, but combined with all the rest it is a bit of hard science coming to market.

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Ethereum Mobile Operating System Goes Live Trustnodes - Trustnodes