Crypto wallets and their challenging user experience have been a major stumbling block for mainstream adoption. For new users, navigating the labyrinth of seed phrases and the rigmarole of reproducing them is a major turnoff and a stark contrast to the streamlined efficiency of some mainstream apps that let you access funds by simply looking at a screen.

Traditional payments solutions such as Apple Pay operate on a global scale, processing over a trillion transactions per year. In addition to the simple user experience, mainstream payments apps have real-world use cases, integrating with merchant endpoints. For instance, Starbucks processes 30 million transactions per week within its native app.

Despite the massive transaction volume, many of these solutions have not reached across the globe, whether as solutions for the unbanked or in fast-growing economies. For instance, Apple users account for only 30% of smartphone users, mostly concentrated in Europe and North America—while the remaining 70% in the world are Android users.

Unveiling the Future Of Payments

ETHGlobal 2023 hackathon winner, Clave, is a user-friendly, non-custodial smart wallet that is powered by a combination of zkSync Era’s native account abstraction and advanced hardware. It promises a frictionless user experience (UX) for Web3 users and a new standard in wallet usability.

This week at Devconnect, Clave launched on zkSync Era with two powerful payments use cases to demonstrate its innovations in a real-world setting: zkCafé and zkBazaar.

Attendees experienced the future of wallet UX by trying out zkSync Era's native account abstraction on Clave and received free refreshments and local goods in the process. To set up their wallet, attendees simply entered their biometrics and a nickname to get started.

As a welcome gift, Clave accounts came preloaded with mock zkWEN tokens for a unique experience at Istanbul’s Mösyö Coffee for zkCafe and at the zkBazaar. Merchants from Istanbul’s famous market set up shop and accepted payments with Clave—delivering a tap-and-go UX akin to mainstream payments platforms.

Throughout the day, over 500 people bought goods at the Bazaar, accounting for 2,100 transactions (purchases) and over 18,900 zkWEN tokens spent.

Native Account Abstraction for Frictionless UX

A key tenet of the ZK Credo is decentralization, which makes the improvement of non-custodial wallet usability a primary goal. Crypto wallets should be as simple to manage as “email accounts,” per Vitalik Buterin––users should be able to recover their seed phrase as easily as resetting an email password. This is where zkSync Era’s native account abstraction plays a pivotal role.

Account abstraction streamlines wallet interactions without sacrificing security,  making processes like onboarding and account recovery as straightforward as managing an email account.

Account abstraction transforms every crypto wallet account into a unique smart contract, ensuring that it’s easy to use, secure, customized to a user’s specific needs, and complete with its own tailored logic. Users' mobile devices will turn into hardware crypto wallets—and that’s a potential game-changer for crypto adoption. With each Clave account operating like a smart contract, this approach brings a new level of simplicity to the forefront of the crypto wallet experience.

For Clave, building on zkSync allows for a tech stack that is modular, flexible, and multichain. Most crucially, zkSync Era stands out from other ZK-rollups because its advanced mechanics provide the necessary infrastructure for native account abstraction at the protocol layer. Transactions on zkSync are inexpensive and blazingly fast with best-in-class security.

Setting a New Standard for Usability

Clave will unlock four key usability features by building on zkSync and implementing account abstraction:

• Biometric Authentication with Secure Enclave: Clave's solution uses face ID and hardware support, such as Apple’s Secure Enclave and Android Trustzone—making wallet interactions a breeze.

• Paymasters: Smart contracts sponsor network fees so that users can pay gas with any paymaster-supported token, such as USDC or DAI—removing the need to hold native gas fee tokens that can increase the complexity of the UX.

• Sponsored Transactions: Users won’t pay gas fees for actions like activating accounts, making backups, or buying local goods at Devconnect’s zkBazaar, as transaction fees will be sponsored by Clave—creating effective marketing and reward opportunities incentivizing users to try out new services

• Social Recovery: In case they lose access to their mobile devices, users can add friends, family, or another account as guardians to recover their Clave account—allowing for reliance on their trusted parties instead of an anonymous server or company.

In the near future, Clave will introduce session keys, trusted onchain accounts, and daily spending limits, which will provide additional security measures to protect user accounts.

Account abstraction is a critical vehicle for the mass adoption of crypto. Clave is leading the way with its biometric-powered smart wallet and will set the standard for mass market payments onchain—opening up the power of crypto to billions around the world.