EIP-7951 may not make mnemonic phrases disappear overnight, but it has finally removed the largest stumbling block on the road to the widespread adoption of Ethereum.

Written by: Zhixiong Pan

You Actually Already Have a "Hardware Wallet" in Your Pocket

The smartphones and computers we use daily actually come with dedicated security chips built-in. For example, the "Secure Enclave" in iPhones, or the Keystore / Trust Zone / StrongBox in Android phones.

This independent physical area is commonly referred to as TEE (Trusted Execution Environment). Its characteristic is "input only": private keys are generated inside and never leave this physical area; the outside can only request it to sign data.

This is essentially the standard for hardware wallets. When signing, these chips generally use an industry-standard algorithm curve selected by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology): secp256r1. This is also the cornerstone behind WebAuthn and FIDO2 (such as your fingerprint login and FaceID).

A Gap of Just One Letter

The awkward part is that Ethereum does not natively support this mainstream secp256r1.

Years ago, the Bitcoin community chose the relatively obscure secp256k1 due to concerns about a potential "national backdoor" in NIST curves, so Ethereum followed this tradition when designing its account system.

Although r1 and k1 seem to differ by just one letter, mathematically they are completely different languages. This leads to a significant pain point: the security chip in your phone is completely baffled by Ethereum; it cannot directly sign Ethereum transactions.

Since we can't change the hardware, let's "adapt" it in this version

Ethereum clearly cannot force Apple or Samsung to change their chip designs to accommodate secp256k1; the only way is for Ethereum to adapt to secp256r1.

Can we write code in smart contracts to verify r1 signatures? Theoretically yes, but the mathematical operations are too complex, and running a single verification could consume hundreds of thousands of Gas, which is economically unfeasible.

Thus, in the Fusaka upgrade, developers introduced a powerful tool: precompiled contracts. This is akin to opening a "backdoor" or "plugin" in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Instead of having the EVM calculate step by step, it is more efficient to write this verification function directly into the underlying client code. Developers only need to call a specific address to complete the verification at a very low cost.

In EIP-7951, this cost is fixed at 6900 Gas, dropping from hundreds of thousands to just a few thousand, finally entering the range of "usable in real products on a daily basis."

The Last Piece of the Puzzle for Account Abstraction

The implementation of this EIP means we can finally sign authorizations for smart accounts on Ethereum within the TEE environment of our phones.

It is important to note that this does not apply to your current EOA addresses like MetaMask (because their public key generation logic is still k1).

It is specifically designed for "account abstraction" (AA wallets). In the future, your wallet will no longer be a string of mnemonic phrases, but rather a smart contract. This contract will state:

"As long as this fingerprint (r1 signature) is verified as correct, allow the transfer."

Summary

EIP-7951 may not make mnemonic phrases disappear overnight, but it has finally removed the largest stumbling block on the road to the widespread adoption of Ethereum.

Before this, users were always faced with a harsh choice: Want to have "bank-level" self-security? You have to spend money on a OneKey, Keystone, or Ledger, and also safeguard your mnemonic phrases like gold bars; Want the smoothest experience? You can only keep your coins on exchanges or custodial wallets, at the cost of giving up control (sacrificing decentralization).

However, after the Fusaka upgrade, this choice will no longer exist.

With the implementation of EIP-7951, "phones as hardware wallets" will gradually become a reality. For the next billion new users, they may not even need to know what a "private key" is, nor face the psychological pressure of writing down 12 words.

They will only need to swipe their face or press their fingerprint, and the security chip in the iPhone will call secp256r1 to sign the transaction and complete the verification through Ethereum's native precompiled contract.

This is the correct approach for Ethereum to embrace the next billion users: not arrogantly demanding users to learn complex cryptography, but rather humbly adapting to the universal standards of the internet and actively stepping into users' pockets.

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