Why Shared Sequencers Are the Natural Home for AA Logic

Account Abstraction's execution logic is migrating from the application to the infrastructure layer. Smart contract wallets like Safe and Biconomy handle complex user intents, but their on-chain execution is slow and expensive.

Shared sequencers like Espresso and Astria are the natural execution layer for AA. They batch and order transactions off-chain, enabling atomic multi-chain operations that L1s and isolated rollups cannot perform.

This convergence solves the atomicity problem. A user's cross-chain swap via UniswapX and loan repayment on Aave can be bundled into a single, guaranteed atomic transaction by the sequencer, eliminating settlement risk.

The evidence is in the architecture. Projects like EigenLayer's shared sequencer are being designed with native AA support, treating user intents as a first-class primitive for ordering, not just an afterthought for execution.

Account abstraction (AA) fails at the wallet level because it lacks a global view. A wallet cannot coordinate a cross-DEX swap or a cross-chain intent without knowing the final, settled state of the entire transaction sequence.

A shared sequencer solves this by providing a single, authoritative ordering layer. This allows the sequencer to treat a complex user intent—like a swap on Uniswap followed by a bridge via Across—as a single, atomic unit of work.

This creates network-level AA, where the protocol, not the user's client, manages gas and execution. The sequencer becomes the trusted executor for intents, similar to how UniswapX or CowSwap work, but generalized for the entire rollup ecosystem.

Evidence: The success of intent-based architectures in CowSwap and UniswapX proves the demand. A shared sequencer extends this model from a single application to the entire L2 state, enabling native cross-application atomicity.

Account abstraction's bundler problem is a coordination failure. Individual bundlers compete for user operations, creating a fragmented, inefficient market. This mirrors the pre-UniswapX DEX landscape where liquidity was siloed.

Shared sequencers subsume the bundler. A network like Espresso or Astria becomes the canonical bundler, aggregating all user intents. This eliminates redundant competition and creates a single, efficient market for transaction ordering.

The business model shifts from fee extraction to network value capture. A standalone bundler is a low-margin utility. A shared sequencer capturing all rollup transactions becomes a foundational Layer 0 for execution, akin to Celestia for data.

Evidence: Starknet's native AA adoption shows the demand. A shared sequencer with integrated AA logic will process orders of magnitude more intents than any standalone Pimlico-style service, justifying its valuation as infrastructure.

Shared sequencers centralize logic, not assets. The core innovation of account abstraction is moving signature verification off-chain; this logic must live somewhere. A shared sequencer network like Astria or Espresso provides a neutral, verifiable execution layer superior to embedding this logic in each individual application or wallet.

This is a shift from client-side to network-side validation. Traditional wallets like MetaMask perform validation locally. AA bundles this work into a standardized mempool object that sequencers process. This mirrors the evolution from local SQL queries to cloud APIs—centralizing compute for decentralized access.

Compare to intent-based architectures. Systems like UniswapX and CoW Swap already rely on centralized solvers for complex order routing. A shared sequencer for AA is the infrastructure-layer equivalent, creating a competitive market for bundling services rather than a monopoly.

Evidence: The Ethereum roadmap itself centralizes PBS (Proposer-Builder Separation) logic. This establishes a precedent: critical path coordination benefits from specialized, accountable actors. A sequencer proving fraud proofs for invalid AA bundles is more efficient than 10,000 wallets checking each other.