Rhinestone is announcing a $500k fund to finance the audit of Smart Account Modules built for the ERC-7579 ecosystem. Modules are self-contained smart contracts that extend a Smart Account's feature set. The goal of this fund is to significantly reduce the upfront friction and cost associated with bringing an ERC-7579 Module to market.
The fund will prioritize two categories of Modules:
An example of (1) would be a zero-knowledge extension of Smart Sessions to enable private session keys. An example of (2) would be using Smart Account Modules to create a DeFi automations service that aggregates DeFi protocols and provides automated position management (e.g., auto rebalancing).
More details on the selection criteria to come soon
Since the launch of ERC-4337, we’ve seen the accelerated development of Smart Account implementations and account features (such as passkeys and session keys). Some features have been built natively into the account, and others via module systems.
This results in fragmented accounts across supported features and security models, with added overhead for users and developers to manage these various account implementations. Ultimately, developers must choose which platforms to support, creating either vendor lock-in or duplicate work.
Rhinestone Protocol 1.0 makes Smart Accounts extensible, portable, and secure, unlocking three core benefits for the ecosystem:
Alongside the protocol, Rhinestone offers tools and services to make building, auditing, and using Modules at the application layer seamless for developers.