Fundamentals 3 min read· beginner
Smart Wallet
Passkey-based wallets — no seed phrases, no extensions, no friction.
Standard
ERC-4337
Auth
WebAuthn / Passkey
Onboarding
<10 seconds
The pitch
Sign in with FaceID or TouchID. That is the wallet. No seed phrase to back up, no extension to install, no app store download. Just a passkey stored in your device's secure enclave.
How it works
Smart Wallet is an ERC-4337 smart contract account. The "owner" is a WebAuthn key (your passkey) instead of a private key. Coinbase Smart Wallet syncs across your devices via iCloud Keychain / Google Password Manager.
- No seed phrase — passkey is hardware-backed
- Cross-device sync via cloud passkey storage
- Smart contract = supports batched txs, sponsored gas, recovery
- Recoverable via Coinbase if device is lost
Tradeoffs to know
It is a smart contract, so first transaction costs slightly more to deploy. Not every dApp supports SCAs yet, but coverage is growing fast.
Resources
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