An Ethereum proposal still in draft form is seeking to change how users pay for on-chain transaction fees. Under the design, users will no longer need to hold ETH upfront to initiate transactions; ERC-20 tokens in their wallets can be used directly to pay for gas, and applications can also cover these fees on behalf of users.
The transaction is split into three steps.
This proposal, numbered EIP-8144, splits a single Ethereum transaction into up to 64 "frames," each of which is a standard contract call. Its core structure consists of three parts: first, verifying the transaction's validity; second, confirming who pays the gas; and third, executing the user's intended operation.
This splitting approach separates “who signs the transaction” from “who pays the gas fee.” As a result, wallets holding only stablecoins or other ERC-20 tokens can directly perform on-chain operations, and some applications can choose to cover gas fees for users, lowering the barrier to first-time use.
No longer reliant on independent memory pools
Similar capabilities have not appeared for the first time. Since the introduction of ERC-4337 in 2023, the Ethereum ecosystem has been able to achieve a certain level of account abstraction and paymaster mechanisms, but typically requires transactions to be forwarded through an independent mempool and relies on third-party bundlers for packaging.
The difference with EIP-8141 is that it aims to encode the relevant rules directly into the protocol layer while continuing to use Ethereum’s public mempool. This allows nodes to evaluate the verification steps within transactions before receiving them, reducing reliance on additional intermediary roles and eliminating the need for users to switch to an entirely new wallet system.
I also want to resolve rollback and key issues.
The proposal author also aims to address several long-standing interaction issues. For example, multiple operations can be bundled together as a single unit, either all succeeding or all failing. This prevents orphaned approvals from being left behind during token swap rollbacks.
EIP-8141 also attempts to decouple accounts from the currently prevalent ECDSA keys, enabling key rotation. According to the authors, this can also be seen as a preparatory step toward post-quantum signatures, as post-quantum signatures are larger and future networks may require greater reliance on signature aggregation.
It is still a draft.
This proposal has been in draft status since January this year and has not yet been scheduled for any Ethereum network upgrade. Vitalik Buterin recently mentioned that the ethrex client has tested the integration of Frames and FOCIL mechanisms on testnets, with one goal being to enable privacy protocols to operate without relying on relayers.
Currently, EIP-8141 does not have a defined launch schedule, but if it proceeds into the upgrade roadmap, it could impact Ethereum wallet design, application onboarding methods, and the cost structure for users entering the chain for the first time.