Ethereum Governance Reflection: Why are people dissatisfied with the EIP-3074 incident?

Reflections on Ethereum Governance Following the 3074 Saga

Author: Derek

Translator: Daisy

In this article, I elaborate on my thoughts on the recent EIP-3047 event. I appreciate the review of the content by Vitalik and Yoav.

If you are not clear about this event, let’s briefly review it.

Recently, the EIP-3074 proposal received approval from core developers and plans to be implemented in the next Ethereum hard fork, Pectra. The purpose of this proposal is to allow regular Ethereum account (EOA) users to also enjoy the many benefits of Account Abstraction (AA).

However, the ERC-4337 community, especially the drafters of this proposal, expressed strong opposition to the EIP-3074 proposal, mainly because EIP-3047 may exacerbate centralization risks and is inconsistent with the Ethereum account abstraction roadmap, which is centered around EIP-4337 and its close relative EIP-7560 (also known as native abstract accounts).

Last week, Vitalik proposed EIP-7702 as an alternative to EIP-3074. It aims to bring the benefits of account abstraction to EOA users, but its design is more in line with the current EIP-4337 standard and can smoothly transition to the final form - EIP-7560.

Translator’s note: ERC-4337 and ERC-7560 are proposals related to account abstraction in the Ethereum ecosystem, aiming to improve user account management and interaction methods, as well as enhance user experience and security.

ERC-4337 allows users to manage their accounts through proxy contracts, reducing the complexity and risks of user DApp interactions. ERC-7560 aims to directly integrate the concepts from proposals such as ERC-4337 into the Ethereum base layer, enabling all accounts to naturally possess the capability of account abstraction, thus providing deeper integration and optimization.

ERC-4337 is an important step towards the transition to ERC-7560, and together they form the core of the Ethereum account abstraction roadmap.

Currently, the core development team is discussing EIP-7702, and some early signs and community feedback indicate that EIP-7702 is likely to replace EIP-3074 in the Pectra Hard Fork.

I am personally very satisfied with this result: EOA users will soon be able to enjoy the benefits of account abstraction through the tools and infrastructure built for ERC-4337.

However, the process of achieving this goal has made me uneasy and I feel that it is far from the optimal path, which is also a common feeling among many people recently. I firmly believe that with a more comprehensive process, we could reduce conflicts and reach consensus more quickly.

In this article, I intend to:

• Analyzing the problems present in the process
• Propose a framework for understanding Ethereum governance.
• Discuss how to improve and avoid making the same mistake in the future.

Why is everyone dissatisfied?

The whole incident has made many people dissatisfied for several reasons.

• The long road of approval: EIP-3074 took years to finally get the green light.
• Feedback delay: Core developers only listened to the opposition from the ERC-4337 community after it passed through 3074.
• Warning failed: Despite the author of proposal 4337 repeatedly expressing concerns about 3074 to the core developers, it had little effect.
• Change of tune: Now, we are facing a situation where EIP-3074 is being revoked and replaced with EIP-7702.

Objectively speaking, each of the above steps is reasonable when viewed individually.

• Long discussions make sense.
• It is normal to encounter opposition after approval.