Account abstraction will drive a billion users from Asia to Web3: ConsenSys exec

Account abstraction, also known as “smart accounts” could eventually onboard a billion users from the Asia region to Web3, according to an executive at Ethereum software solutions provider ConsenSys.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, the director of strategic initiatives at ConsenSys, Laura Shi, noted that the Ethereum and Web3 ecosystem has seen a strong expansion in Asia this year.

“More dApps are improving UX for the Asian market, including introducing Asian language support,” she said.

Shi added this expansion is primarily being driven by the introduction of zero knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) rollups and the mass adoption of Optimistic rollups.

The two rollups are layer-2 scaling solutions with zkEVM offering developers security, scaling and direct compatibility with Ethereum smart contracts.

Shi believes the development of account abstraction, which offers greater programmable functionality and more “bank-like” features than a regular crypto wallet, would increase adoption in the region.

“The development of account abstraction will facilitate the onboarding of billion-level users in APAC to Web3”

Account abstraction was proposed by Vitalik Buterin and other developers in EIP-4337 to “completely avoid consensus-layer protocol changes, instead relying on higher-layer infrastructure,” in September 2021. However, the concept goes much further back in Ethereum’s timeline.

According to the 2022 Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index, the top two crypto-adopting countries in the world were in Asia — Vietnam and the Philippines. Thailand, China and India were in the top 10 despite anti-crypto sentiments from their respective governments.

Shi believes mass adoption in Asia is also being driven by social gaming and Web3 gaming, citing South Korea and China as examples.

“South Korea’s gaming publishers are continuously focusing on Web3 RPG game publishing, attempting to optimize the sustainability of the on-chain economic model,” said Shi.

“Meanwhile, the Chinese-speaking developer ecosystem is focusing on onboarding Web2 users to Web3 gaming through adopting account abstraction solutions.”

Both use cases will rely heavily on zkEVM roll ups and account abstraction development, she added.

“From the use-case perspective, we see Web3 social and gaming content has the largest potential in the coming years. It is powered by [a] zkEVM rollup solution and [an] account abstraction solution that enables gas fee subsidy and social recovery.”

Related: Asia’s current gaming domination ‘crucial’ for Web3 games

Asked whether the current U.S. industry crackdown could be driving Ethereum and Web3 ecosystem growth in Asia, Shi said she didn’t see any correlation.

“So far we have not observed any direct correlation between these and the regulatory dynamics in the United States.”

The pivot to Asia has been a hot topic recently as U.S. crypto and Web3 companies seek friendlier jurisdictions in the Far East.

However, the Ethereum ecosystem in Asia appears to be doing fine on its own without the catalyst of Uncle Sam’s war on crypto.

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