Ethereum and Base Split on Account Abstraction Standards

Efforts to unify account abstraction standards between Ethereum and Base have broken down, with both chains now pursuing divergent designs. According to Derek Chiang, founding member and researcher at Ethlabs and co-author of Ethereum's EIP-8141 proposal, interoperability took a back seat to each chain's core priorities during negotiations that collapsed last week. In a Monday X post, Chiang noted that the fallout now "puts the burden on wallets," as they will need to support separate transaction formats to deliver a consistent user experience across networks.

Ethereum is advancing its Frame Transactions framework under EIP-8141 as a headline feature of the upcoming Hegotá upgrade, which would introduce native account abstraction and create a path toward post-quantum authentication. Base, meanwhile, is building out its own native account abstraction through Keystore under EIP-8130, which is already live on devnet. Chiang attributed the divergence to differing priorities between layer-1 and layer-2 networks, arguing that L1s increasingly favor standards emphasizing censorship resistance, privacy, and security, while scalability-focused L2s are gravitating toward designs like EIP-8130.

Despite the split, Chiang framed the outcome as a net positive, suggesting both Ethereum and Base are now "free to innovate on AA to the maximal extent in accordance with their own visions." Ethereum developers could begin implementing Hegotá in late 2026 following the Glamsterdam upgrade, which is designed to improve scalability, harden the L1, and enhance usability, with a mainnet launch expected in the second half of 2026 according to the network's public roadmap.