New figures show that no one is using ERC-4337 smart tags

Ethereum account drafter John Reesing has shared some “alarming” numbers that show overall ERC-4437 adoption is far from ideal.

In a Nov. 14 post on X (formerly Twitter), ERC-4337 enabled smart accounts raise shared data points that show a decline in users, lower transaction activity, and weaker operating costs for major infrastructure providers.

The ERC-4337 standard was announced on March 1 at WalletCon in Denver. Many were optimistic that “smart accounts” would see rapid adoption, as the technology would allow users to use pedigrees and sign off on specific transactions, and generally improve the user experience on Ethereum's virtual machine-compatible blockchains.

Using figures from account abstraction data platform BundleBear, Rising says monthly account retention has been “difficult”, with only 6.89% of its first smart accounts sticking around for more than six months.

Retention is scary.

One exception to this is CyberConnect, where many users have returned to request an airdrop.

Data: @0xBundleBear pic.twitter.com/TUzQQJYcp8

— John Rising (@johnrising_) November 13, 2023

The rise of bundles – the infrastructure components that allow smart bills to run on EVM-compatible chains – highlighted that they were largely unprofitable, although some projects accidentally paid “too much” for the bundles in gas.

Additionally, the average smart account was found to send only five user actions – execution of transactions or activities from the account.

Related: Fireblocks, UniPass Wallet Addresses Ethereum ERC-4337 Account Draft Vulnerability

However, Coinbase's protocols lead and Base creator Jesse Pollack pushed back on Rising's statement of numbers as “hypothesis” – saying instead that adoption of the new technology would be “slow and then sudden.”

“It seems too early. Growth seems healthy, standardization seems to be emerging,” Pollack said. The groups I talk to keep growing.

fwiw, this doesn't sound like a concern to me – it just seems too early. Growth seems healthy, standardization seems to be happening, a lot of teams I talk to are jumping on board.

Slowly, then suddenly :)https://t.co/F7sU4xUqbD

— Jesse Pollak (@jesse.xyz) ️ (@jessepollak) November 13, 2023

According to data from Dune Analytics, August was the biggest month for active account draft wallets with more than 420,000 active smart accounts across seven blockchains.

Active smart accounts are declining somewhat, with 143,000 monthly active accounts registered in October.

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