Abstract

Introduce a universal account abstraction recovery mechanism recoverOwnership(newOwner, provider, proof) along with recovery provider management functions for smart accounts to securely update their owner.

Motivation

Account abstraction and the “contractization” of EOAs are important Ethereum milestones for improving on-chain UX and off-chain security. A wide range of smart accounts emerge daily, aiming to simplify the steep onboarding curve for new users. The ultimate smart account experience is to never ask them to deal with private keys, yet still allow for full account control and ownership recovery. With the developments in the ZKAI and ZK2FA fields, settling on a common mechanism may even open the doors for “account recovery provider marketplaces” to emerge.

The AARI aims to define a flexible interface for any smart account to implement, allowing users to actively manage their account recovery providers and restore the ownership of an account in case of a private key loss.

Specification

The keywords “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

A smart account willing to support AARI MUST implement the following interface:

pragma solidity ^0.8.20;

/**
 * @notice Defines a common account recovery interface for smart accounts to implement.
 */
interface IAccountRecovery {
    /**
     * MUST be emitted in the `recoverOwnership` function upon successful recovery.
     */
    event OwnershipRecovered(address indexed oldOwner, address indexed newOwner);
    
    /**
     * MUST be emitted in the `addRecoveryProvider` function.
     */
    event RecoveryProviderAdded(address indexed provider);

    /**
     * MUST be emitted in the `removeRecoveryProvider` function.
     */
    event RecoveryProviderRemoved(address indexed provider);

    /**
     * @notice An `onlyOwner` function to add a new recovery provider.
     * SHOULD be access controlled.
     * MUST check that `provider` is not `address(0)`.
     * MUST call `subscribe` on the `provider`.
     * 
     * @param provider the address of a recovery provider (ZKP verifier) to add.
     * @param recoveryData custom data (commitment) for the recovery provider.
     */
    function addRecoveryProvider(address provider, bytes memory recoveryData) external;

    /**
     * @notice An `onlyOwner` function to remove an existing recovery provider.
     * SHOULD be access controlled.
     * MUST call `unsubscribe` on the `provider`.
     * 
     * @param provider the address of a previously added recovery provider to remove.
     */
    function removeRecoveryProvider(address provider) external;

    /**
     * @notice A view function to check if a provider has been previously added.
     * 
     * @param provider the provider to check.
     * @return true if the provider exists in the account, false otherwise.
     */
    function recoveryProviderExists(address provider) external view returns (bool);

    /**
     * @notice A non-view function to recover ownership of a smart account.
     * MUST check that `provider` exists in the account.
     * MUST call `recover` on the `provider`.
     * MUST update the account owner to `newOwner` if `proof` verification succeeds.
     * MUST return `true` if the ownership recovery is successful.
     * 
     * @param newOwner the address of a new owner.
     * @param provider the address of a recovery provider.
     * @param proof an encoded proof of recovery (ZKP/ZKAI, signature, etc).
     * @return `true` if recovery is successful, `false` (or revert) otherwise.
     */
    function recoverOwnership(
        address newOwner,
        address provider,
        bytes memory proof
    ) external returns (bool);
}

A recovery provider MUST implement the following interface:

/**
 * @notice Defines a common recovery provider interface.
 */
interface IRecoveryProvider {
    /**
     * MUST be emitted in the `subscribe` function.
     */
    event AccountSubscribed(address indexed account);

    /**
     * MUST be emitted in the `unsubscribe` function.
     */
    event AccountUnsubscribed(address indexed account);

    /**
     * @notice A function that "subscribes" a smart account (msg.sender) to a recovery provider.
     * SHOULD process and assign the `recoveryData` to the `msg.sender`.
     * 
     * @param recoveryData a recovery commitment (hash/ZKP public output) to be used 
     * in the `recover` function to check a recovery proof validity.
     */
    function subscribe(bytes memory recoveryData) external;

    /**
     * @notice A function that revokes a smart account subscription.
     * MUST delete all the recovery data associated with the `msg.sender`.
     */
    function unsubscribe() external;

    /**
     * @notice A function to get a recovery data (commitment) of an account.
     * 
     * @param account the account to get the recovery data of.
     * @return the associated recovery data.
     */
    function getRecoveryData(address account) external view returns (bytes memory);

    /**
     * @notice A function that checks if a recovery of a smart account (msg.sender)
     * to the `newOwner` is possible.
     * SHOULD use `msg.sender`'s `recoveryData` to check the `proof` validity.
     * MUST ensure that the `proof` can't be reused, e.g. update nonce.
     * 
     * @param newOwner the new owner to recover the `msg.sender` ownership to.
     * @param proof the recovery proof.
     */
    function recover(address newOwner, bytes memory proof) external;
}

Rationale

The AARI is expected to work with any account abstraction standard to allow for maximum account recovery flexibility. Whether it is EIP-4337 or EIP-7702, a particular smart account provider may support account recovery by simply implementing a common interface.

Since the whole account recovery process is nothing but proving the knowledge of some alternative secret to a private key, it is essential for accounts to be able to “commit” to this secret. The subscribe function in the recovery provider interface allows precisely for that.

Backwards Compatibility

This EIP is fully backwards compatible.

Security Considerations

There are several security concerns to point out:

  • It is up to a smart account developer to properly access control addRecoveryProvider and removeRecoveryProvider functions.
  • A smart account user may be “phished” to add a malicious recovery provider to their account. In that case, a recovery provider may gain full control over the account by accepting fake recovery proofs.

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.