Why ERC-4337 SDKs Are Too Low-Level

ERC-4337 SDKs are infrastructure tools, not product APIs. They expose developers to the raw mechanics of UserOperations, bundlers, and paymasters, which is akin to requiring web2 devs to build their own HTTP stack and CDN.

This creates a massive integration burden. Teams must become experts in gas sponsorship logic and mempool monitoring, diverting resources from core product development. This is the same mistake early Ethereum dapp devs made by directly managing gas.

The comparison to RPC providers is instructive. Just as Alchemy and Infura abstracted away node management, smart accounts require a layer that abstracts account abstraction itself. The current SDK model from Stackup or Biconomy still expects too much.

Evidence: The dominant smart account deployment tool, ZeroDev Kernel, requires 200+ lines of configuration for basic features—a non-starter for product teams focused on UX, not protocol mechanics.

ERC-4337 SDKs are infrastructure tools. They provide low-level bindings for Bundlers, Paymasters, and EntryPoints, which is analogous to giving web2 devs a TCP/IP library instead of an HTTP client. This forces every team to re-implement gas sponsorship, transaction batching, and fee logic from scratch.

The abstraction is inverted. Developers need to reason about UserOperation mempools and signature aggregation, not intuitive user flows. The cognitive load shifts from 'what should my app do' to 'how do I get this transaction into a block', which is the core failure of current SDKs like those from Stackup or Biconomy.

Compare this to successful abstractions. Uniswap's SDK abstracts away liquidity pools and AMM math, exposing only swaps. The success of intent-based architectures (UniswapX, Across) proves that hiding implementation details behind declarative interfaces drives adoption. ERC-4337 tooling currently does the opposite.

Evidence: The dominant use case for Paymasters today is simple gas sponsorship, yet implementing it requires managing EIP-4337 smart contracts, off-chain relayers, and token exchange rates. This complexity barrier explains why few production dApps have shipped native account abstraction features despite the standard's age.

ERC-4337 SDKs are imperative plumbing. Developers must manually manage UserOperation batching, gas sponsorship logic, and paymaster dependencies, which is the equivalent of writing assembly for account abstraction.

Intent frameworks are declarative interfaces. A user or dapp states a desired outcome (e.g., 'swap X for Y at best price'), and a solver network like UniswapX or CowSwap handles the execution path.

The shift mirrors web2 evolution. Managing individual UserOperations is like configuring server racks; specifying intents is like using AWS Lambda. Biconomy and Stackup are building this higher-level tooling.

Evidence: Projects using Across Protocol's intent-based bridge see 80% lower integration code than those using canonical messaging bridges like LayerZero, which require precise cross-chain state management.

ERC-4337 is assembly language. It exposes raw mechanics like UserOperation batching, paymaster sponsorship, and signature aggregation, demanding deep protocol knowledge for basic functionality.

Intent-based systems are the compiler. Frameworks like UniswapX or Across Protocol declare a desired outcome (e.g., 'swap X for Y on chain Z'), delegating execution pathfinding to a solver network.

The control is an illusion. Managing low-level details like gas sponsorship via paymasters (e.g., Pimlico, Stackup) creates fragility; a solver in CowSwap or 1inch handles this optimally by default.

Evidence: The dominant ERC-4337 bundler, Stackup, processes ~80% of all UserOperations, proving developers default to managed infrastructure rather than building their own.