2023 Year in Review
This year, ERC-4337 massively accelerated the pace of innovation in the account abstraction field. The BundleBear 2023 Year in Review aims to provide a data-driven perspective on the major patterns and trends within the ERC-4337 smart accounts category. All insights are based on ERC-4337 activity on Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Base and Ethereum.
User Insights
7.9M+ User Operations were made in 2023
When you use an ERC-4337 account, you submit User Operations (UserOps) instead of transactions. These UserOps get grouped into bundle transactions that are executed onchain by Bundlers.
The number of monthly UserOps reached a peak of 2.7M in October, then steadily declined to 880k in December.
1.7M accounts made a UserOp in 2023
The highest number of monthly active smart accounts occurred in November, when 450k accounts made at least one UserOp.
Top 10 most used protocols
Here are the protocols that ERC-4337 accounts used the most this year:
| Project | ||
|---|---|---|
| CyberConnect | 534,968 | 986,149 |
| xFANTV token | 446,375 | 991,284 |
| G1 token | 246,107 | 3,377,415 |
| ZTX Hoodie NFT | 211,519 | 216,467 |
| CYBER token | 126,448 | 138,777 |
| Minishard NFT | 64,650 | 79,770 |
| CapX | 45,847 | 584,220 |
| CyberID NFT | 25,462 | 26,798 |
| USDC | 9,738 | 27,030 |
| CapX ID NFT | 9,454 | 9,522 |
85% of all UserOps were made on Polygon this year
Polygon had the highest number of active ERC-4337 accounts this year for two reasons:
- The three most popular apps for 4337 users, CyberConnect, Grindery, and FanTV, were all deployed on Polygon.
- It is much cheaper to deploy and use 4337 accounts on Polygon compared to other chains and L2s. For more insights on smart account costs, check out our cost analysis research report.
Bundler Performance
5.4M bundle transactions were made in 2023
The role of a Bundler is to package UserOps into bundle transactions. The number of monthly bundle transactions consistently increased month-over-month throughout the year.
Top 5 Bundlers
Here are the Bundlers who had the most activity in 2023:
| Bundler | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| pimlico | 4,514,902 | 2,788,440 | $42,269.21 |
| biconomy | 1,717,173 | 1,729,676 | $1,621.09 |
| alchemy | 807,769 | 478,636 | $57,333.15 |
| stackup | 318,952 | 294,002 | $16,574.37 |
| particle | 8,255 | 8,564 | -$74.70 |
86% of the bundles made in 2023 only contained 1 UserOp
When bundles contain multiple UserOps, smart account users save money because the cost of the bundle transaction is shared between all the UserOps. Bundlers also benefit because they spend less by making fewer transactions while charging the same gas premium on every UserOp.
Unfortunately, the number of bundles that contain only one UserOp still greatly exceeds the number of multi-UserOp bundles.
Paymaster Activity
Users and Apps have spent more than $1,000,000 on UserOp fees through Paymasters
Paymaster contracts allow applications to set up custom gas fee policies for their users.
Apps can let users pay for gas using ERC-20 tokens or they can cover the gas fees on behalf of their users. Paymasters have processed nearly a million dollars in total spending, with monthly volume consistently increasing over the past four months.
Top 5 Paymasters
Here are the Paymasters who had the most volume this year:
| Paymaster | |
|---|---|
| pimlico | $294,075.32 |
| stackup | $290,258.17 |
| alchemy | $262,198.06 |
| biconomy | $53,397.79 |
| blocto | $1,018.17 |
96.4% of all UserOps were paid for using a Paymaster
Most of the UserOps made in 2023 were paid for using a paymaster. This means that either the user paid their fees using an ERC20 token or the app/wallet they were using subsidized the fees.
Factories and Wallets
84% of ERC-4337 accounts were deployed using the Zerodev and Biconomy factory contracts
Most accounts are created using a factory contract. A factory is a smart contract that generates other smart contracts. 55% of all accounts were deployed using the Kernel factory created by Zerodev, and 29% were deployed using the Biconomy Account factory created by Biconomy.
Patch and CyberConnect Wallet were the most popular ERC-4337 wallets of 2023
In December, 18% of active accounts used Patch wallet. Patch is used by the Grindery telegram bot, and Grindery has been the primary driver of its growth. Additionally, in December, 25% of active accounts used CyberConnect's built-in wallet.