Why AA SDKs Are Commoditizing (And Why That's Good)

SDKs are converging on standards. The initial fragmentation between Biconomy, ZeroDev, and Alchemy is resolving as all implement ERC-4337 and ERC-6900. This creates a common feature set—sponsored gas, batched transactions, session keys—that developers treat as a baseline.

Commoditization drives specialization. As core bundler and paymaster logic becomes uniform, SDKs must compete on developer experience and vertical integration. The winner isn't the most powerful SDK, but the one that integrates best with Viem/Wagmi or offers the best gas sponsorship marketplace.

Evidence: The migration of dApps like Pimlico from a standalone SDK to a modular provider for any AA stack proves the market values interoperable primitives over proprietary systems. This is the same path The Graph took for indexing.

Commoditization drives adoption. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) succeeded by standardizing execution, not by being proprietary. AA SDKs like Biconomy, ZeroDev, and Stackup are doing the same for user onboarding, turning complex smart account logic into a pluggable service. This lowers the cost for any app to implement gas sponsorship or session keys.

Differentiation shifts up the stack. When the smart account infrastructure becomes a cheap commodity, competition moves to the application layer. This mirrors how AWS commoditized servers, letting startups focus on product, not ops. The value accrues to dApps with the best UX and sticky users, not the SDK vendor.

Interoperability demands standards. The ERC-4337 standard is the catalyst. It creates a common interface for bundlers and paymasters, enabling a competitive market. This is identical to how TCP/IP commoditized network hardware, enabling the internet. Without commoditization at this layer, walled gardens form.

Evidence: The rapid integration of AA tooling by Base, Polygon, and Arbitrum demonstrates demand for a standardized, non-custodial onboarding primitive. Their developer docs now prioritize AA SDKs over basic EOA tutorials, signaling a protocol-level endorsement of this commoditized layer.

SDK commoditization is inevitable. The initial wave of AA SDKs like Biconomy and ZeroDev created walled gardens. Their value was bundling gas sponsorship and bundler logic. ERC-4337's standardization of the UserOperation mempool and bundler market severs this lock-in, turning these features into interchangeable commodities.

The new moat is composability. Value accrues to the most composable primitives, not the most integrated stack. A modular approach using Alchemy's AA SDK for RPC, Pimlico for paymaster services, and a custom bundler is now standard. This mirrors the L2 evolution from monolithic chains (early Optimism) to modular rollups (Arbitrum Nitro).

Evidence: The rise of paymaster marketplaces like Pimlico and Stackup demonstrates this shift. Developers select the best gas sponsorship policy and payment token (USDC, ERC-20) independently of their wallet or bundler, creating a competitive, efficient market for AA services.

SDKs are becoming commodities. The core technical work of bundling, signing, and submitting user operations is now solved. Projects like Stackup, Biconomy, and Alchemy offer near-identical core APIs, forcing them to compete on reliability and developer experience.

Innovation shifts up the stack. The real battle is for user acquisition and retention. Wallets and dApps now compete on features like gas sponsorship, batched transactions, and session keys, not the underlying AA mechanics.

The standard is the moat. ERC-4337 and its ecosystem (like Pimlico's paymaster infrastructure) create a predictable environment. This reduces integration risk and allows builders to focus on product, not protocol plumbing.

Evidence: The Arbitrum ecosystem processed over 11 million user operations in Q1 2024, demonstrating that standardized AA tooling drives adoption, not hinders it.