Ethereum Smart Wallet Adoption Surges Post-Pectra, with Over 11,000 EIP-7702 Authorizations in a Week

Ethereum’s latest network upgrade, Pectra, is already reshaping how users interact with the blockchain. Within just one week of its rollout around May 6, more than 11,000 authorizations tied to EIP-7702 have been recorded on-chain—signaling a strong start for the upgrade’s most user-focused innovation.

EIP-7702 introduces a smart delegation system that allows standard Ethereum wallets—known as externally owned accounts (EOAs)—to temporarily tap into the advanced features of smart contract wallets. This means users don’t have to abandon their traditional wallets to access powerful new tools like batched transactions, multi-signature security, spending limits, or gasless operations.

In practical terms, users can now assign a smart contract to act on their behalf by setting a “delegation indicator.” When transactions are sent to the user’s EOA, the delegated contract executes the logic instead of the EOA’s usual behavior. Importantly, this delegation is reversible—giving users flexibility and control over their wallet’s permissions at any time.

The early numbers show growing enthusiasm among both users and platforms. WhiteBIT, a crypto exchange, leads with over 5,300 authorizations to its delegate contract, which may support smoother onboarding or enable bundled DeFi operations. OKX Wallet follows with more than 3,100 authorizations, placing it ahead of other competitors in adoption volume.

Meanwhile, MetaMask—the most widely used Ethereum wallet—has seen around 1,300 authorizations. However, data reveals that it holds more ETH in its delegate contracts than OKX, pointing to larger transaction sizes or higher-value user activity on average.

Beyond EIP-7702, the broader Pectra upgrade includes several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) aimed at boosting validator efficiency and Layer 2 scaling. Still, EIP-7702 stands out as a landmark step toward mainstream-friendly Ethereum usage.