Using Ethereum’s Goerli testnet and account abstraction technology, Visa piloted a solution to allow customers to pay on-chain gas fees.
Visa, a global payments processor, has launched an experimental solution on Ethereum that makes it easier to pay gas fees.
According to Visa, the ERC-4337 standard and account abstraction technology power the experimental solution on Ethereum’s Goerli testnet, streamlining the interaction between users and the network. This removes the need for end users to store ether (ETH), Ethereum’s native coin, in order to pay transaction or “gas” costs. While users will still be required to pay a gas price, this solution removes a barrier to entry for Ethereum transactions by allowing users to pay using any token, including USDC and USDT. Visa may also pay for such costs.
Some customers may find it difficult to keep track of their ETH balance for gas fees if they utilise a third-party onramp like Coinbase or Moonpay to convert fiat currency into ETH. The Visa research team understood the issue and came up with an innovative approach to help people overcome the difficulties associated with paying for gas.
The “paymaster” is an application-specific smart contract that serves as the backbone of this approach. Mustafa Bedawala, a staff product manager at Visa, claims that this is not a novel idea for the company. Users may now pay onchain gas fees directly using their Visa cards without having to handle native blockchain tokens thanks to the paymaster’s role as a sponsor for gas fees on user contract accounts.
“We are now taking fiat and covering onchain costs for users of our off-chain solution, therefore this is an expansion of our previous experimental solution.” According to what Bedawala told The Block, consumers won’t notice any difference between paying with a card and paying a on-chain charge.
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