Vitalik Buterin highlights account abstraction for security and convenience and talks about the metaverse

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said account abstraction is the way to ensure security and convenience for blockchain developers and users during his Wednesday keynote at BUIDL Asia, a conference focused on cryptography in Seoul, South Korea.

A modern account abstraction includes other features that improve security and convenience that Ethereum does not currently support, according to Buterin. Security goals include the ability for users to change and revoke their private keys and better means of account recovery, while convenience goals include the ability for users to pay gas fees in ERCs- 20 and payment automation.

The concept of account abstraction refers to hiding more technical details of on-chain interactions in favor of accessibility and usability. Ethereum’s account abstraction aims to allow user wallets to function as smart contracts without having to manage external accounts and their private keys.

Ethereum users currently interact with the network using External Accounts (EOAs), requiring them to maintain a private key and additional accounts with additional funds, which is a major inconvenience for users and developers.

“The next 10 years are going to be about truly improving the ecosystem at the user level,” Buterin said at the event. “Let’s create something that people in low-income countries can actually use.” »

Thoughts on the Metaverse

In a Q&A session after his talk, Buterin was asked for his thoughts on the concept of a metaverse, which surged in popularity during the last bull cycle but has apparently declined since as companies failed to managed to make remarkable progress.

“To me, the metaverse is one of those things that is very poorly defined,” Buterin said. “It feels like everyone expects there to be this virtual world that they could all participate in.”

“But the challenge is that this is often tied to VR, but with VR, the kinds of things that people actually need, end up being a lot simpler,” Vitalik continued, adding that “a computer laptop that is not a laptop” is not exactly a “verse”, although useful.

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