A Brief Prelude
Candide’s journey began with a profound idea: to empower every individual with a secure and accessible digital wallet. We believe in a world where citizens of the internet own control of their accounts, and identities are censorship-resistant as an inherent characteristic.
When we started building Candide App, our goal was to elevate the state of Ethereum wallets, enhance usability, and deliver a superior user experience to that of centralized products. We were resolute in our commitment to make Ethereum more accessible.
Early on, we recognized the immense potential of ERC-4337, and we didn’t stand on the sidelines. We dove headfirst into the standard’s development, becoming active contributors. We built in the open. We iterated. We fixed vulnerabilities. We built Voltaire, a vital piece of infrastructure needed to ensure users’ transactions are censorship-resistant. And we shipped. This hands-on approach allowed us to not only grasp the intricacies of Account Abstraction but also actively shape its evolution.
Through our experience building Candide Wallet, we came to understand the formidable challenges associated with building smart wallets using ERC-4337. The road was riddled with complexities, demanding robust smart contracts, developer infrastructure, and tooling to pave the way for more developers to come aboard.
A New Chapter
In response to these challenges, we embarked on a mission to build precisely that: an extensive developer infrastructure and tooling for smart accounts. Our aim is to bridge the gap, making smart wallet development more accessible to a broader community of developers. With the start of development for Candide Atelier, we commit to not only building end solutions but also shaping the future of Ethereum wallets, fostering a more accessible, secure, and user-friendly ecosystem for all.
Key Components of Atelier
1. AbstractionKit: The Reference SDK for ERC-4337 with Safe Accounts
While ERC-4337 introduces a novel paradigm for account abstraction, its practical application has been hindered by a conspicuous absence: the limited adoption of battle-tested smart-contract-based accounts, particularly Safe-based accounts. AbstractionKit is a TypeScript library to easily build and send User Operations, with first-class support for Safe Accounts.
2. A Network for Third-Party Gas Sponsorship
Gas is what makes Ethereum the leading blockchain for censorship resistance. Since each transaction requires computational resources to execute, gas fees are used to incentivize validators to validate the transactions, without the need for a central authority to monitor their execution. This also prevents bad actors from spamming the network.
We believe the current approach of gas sponsored solely by wallet providers is unsustainable. That’s why we are building an ecosystem. Candide’s verifying Paymaster is the sole platform uniting smart wallets and dapps in one cohesive platform. Wallets leveraging the Paymaster will access a growing number of gas policies established by dapps on behalf of user wallets.
3. Voltaire: The Lightning-Fast Bundler Written in Python
Voltaire is designed to operate within the peer-to-peer mempool of User Operations, facilitating the inclusion of transactions on-chain more quickly, at the frontier of efficiency. Today, Voltaire is supported by RPC provider industry leaders LlamaNodes, BlockPi, and Blocknative, and is used by a growing number of smart wallets.
This marks just the beginning of our journey, with more updates on Candide Wallet in subsequent posts.
The Path Ahead for Candide
Building censorship-resistant account abstraction is roughly 10x more effort than traditional centralized methods. The commitment led by the ERC-4337 Team is a truly remarkable one, and the payoff will be a suite of wallets that reshapes self-custodial digital accounts, with a user experience that brings decentralized technology to every individual globally.
Remaining true to our core values, we feel a moral obligation to exercise our independence. Candide is a small independent team that ships what needs to be done rather than overdoing it. To build a stack that is truly permissionless. We are immensely proud and thankful for the support, grants, and friendship we receive from the ERC-4337 Team, The Ethereum Foundation, The Optimism Governance, Safe Grants, Optimism RetroFPG, Gitcoin, and every contributor building toward a better Ethereum.
We strive to create a future where every individual can have access to secure, sovereign digital accounts on the internet, regardless of their background or experience. Verified open-source software remains at the heart of our contribution to the global public good. Join us as we embark on a journey to cultivate our infinite garden.