Chainlink CCIP Powers Hong Kong’s CBDC, OneBalance raises $20M, Uniswap Wallets migrate to 7702, Etherspot x Celo Workshop

#news #blockchain #web3 #tooling

We are welcoming you to our weekly digest! Here, we discuss the latest trends and advancements in account abstraction, chain abstraction and everything related, as well as bring some insights from Etherspot’s kitchen.

The latest news we'll cover:

Please fasten your belts!

Chainlink’s CCIP Powers Hong Kong’s CBDC

Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority has selected Chainlink’s CCIP for the second phase of its e-HKD central-bank digital-currency sandbox.

The partnership will test how tokenized deposits and CBDC balances can move securely across private bank ledgers and public blockchains without relying on custom bridges. CCIP will serve as the interoperability layer connecting permissioned bank chains to Ethereum and other EVM networks, allowing real-time settlement of tokenized carbon credits, green bonds and retail payments denominated in the Hong Kong dollar.

The Phase 2 sandbox expands on 2023 trials in which Standard Chartered, Bank of China, HSBC and Hang Seng explored wholesale settlement, programmable vouchers and offline payments using a prototype e-HKD.

According to Chainlink Labs, CCIP’s programmable rate-limiting and automatic routing will let banks define policy controls while maintaining unified liquidity mirrors of on-chain assets. The pilot also integrates Chainlink’s Proof-of-Reserve feeds to verify that tokenized liabilities remain fully backed by bank-held cash or government securities.

HKMA officials said the goal is to assess technical readiness for a multi-currency regime in which retail users could swap tokenized Hong Kong dollars for foreign CBDCs or stablecoins in seconds, potentially powering regional trade finance. Results will feed into the authority’s decision on whether to launch a production e-HKD, expected no earlier than 2027.

If successful, the deployment would mark one of the first government CBDC projects to rely on an open, oracle-based interoperability standard rather than bespoke middleware.

OneBalance Secures $20M to Scale One-Click Chain Abstraction

OneBalance has closed a $20 million venture round co-led by Blockchain Capital and cyber•Fund, with Mirana Ventures and Iterative Capital also participating, bringing the start-up’s total funding to $25 million.

The capital will accelerate rollout of the OneBalance Toolkit, an API suite that lets developers deliver “one-click” transactions across multiple blockchains without building custom bridging or gas-management infrastructure.

At the heart of OneBalance’s approach are Resource Locks, introduced in May 2024, which parallelise cross-chain settlement. Users lock funds in a OneBalance account and sign an intent; solvers can then release assets on a destination chain immediately, confident of eventual payment once source-chain finality arrives. The company claims this removes double-spend risk, cuts cross-chain execution times by roughly 40 percent and avoids reverted transactions caused by front-running or slippage.

The toolkit is now moving from closed beta to open access and already supports native Bitcoin-to-EVM swaps, with Solana and other networks scheduled to follow. Early adopters reportedly include Circle, Uniswap and LiFi.

OneBalance is led by CEO Stéphane Gosselin, former Flashbots co-founder, alongside COO Daniel Worsley and head of research Ankit Chiplunkar. The team argues that removing cross-chain complexity is essential as crypto reaches mainstream users who expect web-style simplicity.

The fresh funding will be used to expand engineering, deepen liquidity partnerships and extend the solver network that underpins Resource Locks.

Etherspot x Celo Workshop on Building User-Friendly dApps

Etherspot’s Nikhil presented a hands-on workshop for Celo builders that demonstrated how the platform’s account-abstraction stack can streamline user experience and development.

After a brief introduction from the Celo Foundation, the session walked through the Modular SDK, an ERC-7579-compatible toolkit that lets developers install validator, hook, executor and fallback modules into smart accounts. The SDK is fully open-source, TypeScript-based and compliant with EntryPoint v0.8.

Nikhil then showcased Skandha, Etherspot’s ERC-4337 bundler that supports type-4 transactions under EIP-7702, and Arka Paymaster, which enables native or ERC-20 gas sponsorship. Using a live coding demo, he generated a counterfactual wallet, batched a native token transfer, and toggled paymaster settings — all via a single API key obtained from Etherspot’s developer portal. He emphasised that the same flow works with any bundler and spans more than 30 EVM chains.

The workshop highlighted upcoming products as well. Pulse, now in active development, will add intent-based chain abstraction so users can request assets on a destination chain without manual bridging. Session-key functionality, multi-owner validation and ERC-20 gas payments were positioned as core features for building Web2-style dApps on Celo’s low-fee L2.

Uniswap Wallets Upgrade to 7702 Smart Accounts

Uniswap Labs has migrated every new wallet on its mobile and browser-extension apps to EIP-7702 smart-account delegation, making the protocol the first major DeFi venue to switch to smart wallets by default.

Product lead Medha Kothari said existing users may upgrade or retain their legacy EOAs, but imported EOAs that lack a 7702 delegation are automatically converted. The team wrote and open-sourced its own audited contract to retain feature control; it supports ERC-4337 gas abstraction via EntryPoint v0.8, EIP-5792 batched approvals and swaps, plus alternative signers such as passkeys and session keys.

The upgrade is coordinated across Uniswap’s stack. UniChain has been Pectra-ready for a month, enabling 7702 native execution, while the web app now consumes EIP-5792 to deliver one-click swap flows. Day-one chain coverage spans Ethereum mainnet, UniChain, Base, Optimism and BNB Smart Chain, with additional Pectra-enabled networks to be added as they adopt the fork.

Kothari said forthcoming releases will expose delegation management, deeper batching features, and broader gas-fee abstraction. By unifying account abstraction and chain abstraction, Uniswap aims to streamline self-custody and pave the way for session-key-based automations, positioning its wallet suite for passkey adoption and advanced on-chain UX without manual approvals.

Developer Cheat-Sheet: ERC-4337 vs Native Account Abstraction

Thirdweb has published a detailed guide comparing three approaches to account abstraction on Ethereum: ERC-4337 smart-account wallets, forthcoming native abstraction proposals, and the recently implemented EIP-7702 upgrade.

The post positions ERC-4337 as today’s production-ready option, noting that its EntryPoint contract, bundlers and paymasters already underpin wallets such as Safe, Zerodev and Thirdweb’s own Smart Accounts. The trade-off is added gas overhead — roughly twenty thousand units per transaction — and reliance on off-chain infrastructure.

Native account abstraction, embodied in draft EIP-7701, would embed validation logic directly in the protocol, eliminating external bundlers and reducing gas costs. Thirdweb cautions that the change requires hard-fork coordination and extensive client work, placing it on a multi-year horizon.

EIP-7702, activated with Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade in May 2025, allows an externally owned account to behave as a smart contract within a single transaction. Thirdweb describes 7702 as a “bridge” between 4337 and full native abstraction: developers can enhance existing EOAs with batched calls, sponsored gas or passkey authentication without redeploying new wallets.

The guide outlines how Thirdweb’s SDK will surface 7702 functionality once client support stabilises, enabling developers to offer smart-wallet features while maintaining compatibility with legacy tooling.

Thirdweb concludes that builders should continue using ERC-4337 for production dApps, experiment with 7702 for incremental UX gains, and monitor native proposals for long-term migration paths that promise lower fees and simpler architecture.

Start exploring Account Abstraction with Etherspot!