The Future of Fees: The Wallet as a Bundling Agent

ERC-4337 and Paymasters solve the 'need native token' problem but ignore the 'best price execution' problem. Users still overpay for simple swaps and bridges.

• Fragmented Liquidity: User funds are stranded across chains, unable to be used as a single source of payment.
• Missed Optimizations: No cross-chain MEV capture or batch auction participation for the end-user.

Wallets will shift from executing transactions to declaring intents (e.g., 'swap X for Y on the best chain'). A network of solvers (like UniswapX and CowSwap) competes to fulfill this, bundling gas and fees into one optimized package.

• Cross-Chain Native: The solver pays gas, sources liquidity from any chain, and delivers the final asset.
• Price Discovery: Solvers extract MEV from efficient routing and batching, sharing savings with the user.

The wallet becomes a thin client connecting to a settlement network like Across or LayerZero. This layer handles verification, cross-chain messaging, and final payment to solvers.

• Trust Minimized: Security inherits from underlying optimistic or cryptographic verification systems.
• Wallet Agnostic: Any wallet (MetaMask, Rabby, Smart Wallets) can plug into the same intent standard.

By operating their own solver or taking a fee on bundled transactions, wallets transition from cost centers to revenue generators. This aligns incentives for better UX.

• New Business Model: Fee sharing from solver competition and cross-chain MEV capture.
• User Lock-in: Superior execution and cost savings create powerful retention, moving beyond mere key storage.

The problem: Users manage gas for every transaction and sign each operation individually. The solution: A protocol standard that enables wallets to batch operations and sponsor gas via Paymasters.

• UserOps: Bundles multiple actions into a single on-chain transaction.
• Paymasters: Allow fee sponsorship in any token, enabling gasless UX.
• EntryPoint: A singleton contract that validates and executes bundles, ensuring security.

The problem: Running a secure, high-uptime bundler and managing Paymaster liquidity is complex for wallet developers. The solution: Specialized infrastructure providers that abstract the bundling layer.

• RPC Endpoints: Provide simple APIs for wallets to submit UserOps.
• Paymaster Services: Manage token swaps and gas sponsorship logic.
• Bundler Profit: Earn fees via priority ordering and MEV capture on bundled transactions.

The problem: Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) are fundamentally limited and insecure. The solution: SDKs that let developers deploy programmable smart contract wallets as the default.

• Multi-chain Gas: Use one chain's native token to pay for gas on another via Paymasters.
• Session Keys: Enable approved transaction patterns without constant signing.
• Social Recovery: Move security from seed phrases to social or hardware guardians.

The problem: Users still specify low-level 'how' (transactions) instead of high-level 'what' (intents). The solution: Systems that let users submit signed declarations of desired outcomes for off-chain solvers to fulfill.

• Expressivity: "Swap X for Y at best price across any chain."
• Efficiency: Solvers compete to bundle and route intents optimally, absorbing complexity.
• Fee Abstraction: Users pay in input/output tokens; solvers handle native gas.

The problem: Seed phrases and extensions block mainstream adoption. The solution: Non-custodial wallets embedded directly in apps, using secure enclaves and social logins.

• Seamless Onboarding: Users sign in with email or socials; a wallet is created silently.
• Bundling by Default: Every user action is automatically a candidate for gas sponsorship and operation batching.
• Cross-App Portability: Key management remains user-controlled via passkeys or MPC.

The problem: Bundlers and solvers need sustainable revenue. The solution: Capturing value from the order flow they aggregate and the MEV they enable.

• Order Flow Auctions (OFAs): Wallets auction the right to bundle their users' transactions.
• Shared Savings: Revenue from better execution is shared back with users via fee discounts or rebates.
• Cross-Chain MEV: Bundlers optimize for arbitrage and liquidation opportunities across L2s via bridges like Across and LayerZero.

ERC-4337's design outsources transaction bundling to a free market, but economic reality favors centralization. The largest bundlers (e.g., Stackup, Alchemy, Pimlico) will capture the majority of user flow via exclusive wallet integrations and subsidized gas, creating a new MEV-aware choke point.\n- Vertical Integration: Bundlers are becoming RPC providers, sequencers, and wallet SDK vendors.\n- Fee Skimming: They can extract value via priority fees and cross-domain MEV across chains like Ethereum, Optimism, and Arbitrum.

To prevent capture, the bundling layer must be credibly neutral and permissionless, akin to Ethereum's validator set. Projects like EigenLayer and AltLayer are exploring restaked bundlers that use cryptoeconomic security.\n- Staked Security: Bundlers post a bond slashed for censorship or front-running.\n- Open Access: Any entity can join the pool, preventing exclusive deals with wallets like Safe or Coinbase Wallet.\n- Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS): Separates transaction ordering from execution, a concept borrowed from Ethereum's roadmap.

Paymasters enable sponsored transactions, but they are becoming strategic moats. The dominant paymaster (e.g., a Visa partnership or a layer-2 like Base) will dictate which tokens and dApps get prime visibility, recreating App Store-like gatekeeping.\n- Token Agenda: Paymasters will prioritize their native gas token or stablecoin (e.g., USDC).\n- Censorship Vector: They can refuse to sponsor transactions to blacklisted addresses or dApps like Tornado Cash.

Move beyond simple transaction sponsorship to a system where users express desired outcomes (intents). Solvers (like those in CowSwap or UniswapX) compete to fulfill the intent at the best net cost, abstracting gas entirely. The wallet becomes a pure intent client.\n- Auction-Based Fulfillment: Solvers bid for the right to execute, with the user getting the best price.\n- Cross-Chain Native: Intents can be fulfilled across any liquidity source via bridges like Across or LayerZero, making the underlying chain irrelevant to the user.

WaaS providers (Magic, Dynamic, Privy) abstract key management but create catastrophic centralization. They hold the encrypted master secrets for millions of wallets, creating a honeypot target and a single point of failure for entire ecosystems.\n- Catastrophic Risk: A breach or regulatory action against one provider could wipe out thousands of integrated dApps.\n- Vendor Lock-In: Migrating away from a WaaS is nearly impossible without user disruption.

Replace monolithic WaaS with a network of independent signers using Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and threshold signatures. No single entity ever reconstructs the full private key. This is the core innovation behind Web3Auth and Supranational's approach.\n- Geographic Distribution: Signer nodes are run by independent operators across jurisdictions.\n- Client-Side Execution: Key sharding and signing logic runs in the user's browser or device, not on a central server.

Today's wallets compete on UX and integrations, but are largely interchangeable. The bundling agent model creates a new battleground: execution quality. The wallet that consistently secures the best prices from UniswapX, Across, and LayerZero solvers will win. This shifts the moat from features to economic efficiency.

• Key Benefit 1: Creates a sustainable, performance-based competitive advantage.
• Key Benefit 2: Turns the wallet into a revenue center via MEV capture and solver rebates.

The rise of intent-based architectures (like CowSwap and UniswapX) is the prerequisite for this shift. Wallets will submit signed intents ("I want this token") to a network of competing solvers. This commoditizes the blockchain itself, making the wallet's solver network the primary product. Infrastructure like Anoma and SUAVE will power this backend.

• Key Benefit 1: Users get optimal execution without understanding liquidity pools or bridges.
• Key Benefit 2: Enables cross-chain atomic composability as a default, not a feature.

Centralization of routing logic into a few dominant solver networks creates systemic risk. If a handful of entities (e.g., the top 3 solvers) collude, they can extract maximal value from every user transaction. The wallet's role evolves to include solver reputation scoring and decentralized verification of execution proofs.

• Key Benefit 1: Forces innovation in cryptographic attestations and fraud proofs.
• Key Benefit 2: Opens a new market for decentralized solver networks and keeper DAOs.

Successful bundling agents will vertically integrate with application logic. Why use a separate DEX frontend when your wallet is the DEX? We'll see wallets with native limit orders, perpetual swaps, and lending markets that abstract all chain-specific complexity. This turns MetaMask and Rabby into hyper-optimized execution venues, not just key managers.

• Key Benefit 1: Drives user acquisition costs to near zero for integrated protocols.
• Key Benefit 2: Creates unbreakable user lock-in through superior net outcomes.