GasLiteAA: Optimizing ERC-4337 for Efficient and Secure Gas Sponsorship

Hongxu Su; Mingzhe Liu; Jie Xu; Xiaohua Jia; Xuechao Wang

doi:10.1109/icbc67748.2026.11575476

GasLiteAA: Optimizing ERC-4337 for Efficient and Secure Gas Sponsorship

Hongxu Su (Co-first Author)
, Mingzhe Liu (Co-first Author)
, Jie Xu
, Xiaohua Jia
, Xuechao Wang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Computer Science

Research output: Chapters, Conference Papers, Creative and Literary Works › RGC 32 - Refereed conference paper (with host publication) › peer-review

Abstract

ERC-4337, the Ethereum account abstraction standard, simplifies account management and transaction fee payment in decentralized applications by introducing programmable smart contract wallets and gas sponsorship via paymasters. However, its heavy reliance on on-chain validation and frequent state updates incurs substantial gas overhead, leading to performance bottlenecks and limiting scalability in large-scale deployments. To mitigate these issues, we propose GasLiteAA, a framework that optimize ERC-4337 by offloading paymaster logic to Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). GasLiteAA delegates the secure execution of stateful gas sponsorship logic and user quota management to TEE, enforcing validation rules off-chain while anchoring their integrity on-chain via lightweight cryptographic attestations. This verifiable offloading architecture significantly reduces on-chain computation and storage costs without sacrificing verifiability or decentralization. Experimental results demonstrate that GasLiteAA substantially lowers transaction fees, while remaining fully compatible with Ethereum Layer 1. By balancing security, efficiency, and deployability, GasLiteAA provides a practical and scalable approach to gas sponsorship for account-abstraction-based decentralized applications. © 2026 IEEE.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	2026 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC)
Publisher	IEEE
Number of pages	9
ISBN (Electronic)	979-8-3315-8633-1
ISBN (Print)	979-8-3315-8634-8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/icbc67748.2026.11575476
Publication status	Published - Jun 2026
Event	8th IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2026) - QUT Gardens Theatre, Brisbane, Australia Duration: 1 Jun 2026 → 5 Jun 2026 https://icbc2026.ieee-icbc.org/

Publication series

Name
ISSN (Print)	2832-8892
ISSN (Electronic)	2832-8906

Conference

Conference	8th IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2026)
Abbreviated title	IEEE ICBC 2026
Place	Australia
City	Brisbane
Period	1/06/26 → 5/06/26
Internet address	https://icbc2026.ieee-icbc.org/

Bibliographical note

Research Unit(s) information for this publication is provided by the author(s) concerned.

Funding

This work was funded by the Guangzhou-HKUST(GZ) Joint Funding Program (No. 2025A03J3882), the Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Project (No. 2025A04J4168), and HK RGC Grant No. RFS2425-1S01.

Research Keywords

Blockchain
trusted execution environment
Account Abstraction
Smart Contract
ERC4337
ZKP
TEE
Sharding

RGC Funding Information

RGC-funded

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10.1109/icbc67748.2026.11575476

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Cite this

@inproceedings{082df39af716466b863124e2ea3b9d9a,

title = "GasLiteAA: Optimizing ERC-4337 for Efficient and Secure Gas Sponsorship",

abstract = "ERC-4337, the Ethereum account abstraction standard, simplifies account management and transaction fee payment in decentralized applications by introducing programmable smart contract wallets and gas sponsorship via paymasters. However, its heavy reliance on on-chain validation and frequent state updates incurs substantial gas overhead, leading to performance bottlenecks and limiting scalability in large-scale deployments. To mitigate these issues, we propose GasLiteAA, a framework that optimize ERC-4337 by offloading paymaster logic to Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). GasLiteAA delegates the secure execution of stateful gas sponsorship logic and user quota management to TEE, enforcing validation rules off-chain while anchoring their integrity on-chain via lightweight cryptographic attestations. This verifiable offloading architecture significantly reduces on-chain computation and storage costs without sacrificing verifiability or decentralization. Experimental results demonstrate that GasLiteAA substantially lowers transaction fees, while remaining fully compatible with Ethereum Layer 1. By balancing security, efficiency, and deployability, GasLiteAA provides a practical and scalable approach to gas sponsorship for account-abstraction-based decentralized applications. {\textcopyright} 2026 IEEE.",

keywords = "Blockchain, trusted execution environment, Account Abstraction, Smart Contract, ERC4337, ZKP, TEE, Sharding",

author = "Hongxu Su and Mingzhe Liu and Jie Xu and Xiaohua Jia and Xuechao Wang",

note = "Research Unit(s) information for this publication is provided by the author(s) concerned.; 8th IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2026) , IEEE ICBC 2026 ; Conference date: 01-06-2026 Through 05-06-2026",

year = "2026",

month = jun,

doi = "10.1109/icbc67748.2026.11575476",

language = "English",

isbn = "979-8-3315-8634-8",

publisher = "IEEE",

booktitle = "2026 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC)",

address = "United States",

url = "https://icbc2026.ieee-icbc.org/",

}

Su, H, Liu, M , Xu, J , Jia, X & Wang, X 2026, GasLiteAA: Optimizing ERC-4337 for Efficient and Secure Gas Sponsorship. in 2026 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC). IEEE, 8th IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2026) , Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 1/06/26. https://doi.org/10.1109/icbc67748.2026.11575476

GasLiteAA: Optimizing ERC-4337 for Efficient and Secure Gas Sponsorship. / Su, Hongxu (Co-first Author); Liu, Mingzhe (Co-first Author); Xu, Jie et al.
2026 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC). IEEE, 2026.

Research output: Chapters, Conference Papers, Creative and Literary Works › RGC 32 - Refereed conference paper (with host publication) › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - GasLiteAA

T2 - 8th IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2026)

AU - Su, Hongxu

AU - Liu, Mingzhe

AU - Xu, Jie

AU - Jia, Xiaohua

AU - Wang, Xuechao

N1 - Research Unit(s) information for this publication is provided by the author(s) concerned.

PY - 2026/6

Y1 - 2026/6

N2 - ERC-4337, the Ethereum account abstraction standard, simplifies account management and transaction fee payment in decentralized applications by introducing programmable smart contract wallets and gas sponsorship via paymasters. However, its heavy reliance on on-chain validation and frequent state updates incurs substantial gas overhead, leading to performance bottlenecks and limiting scalability in large-scale deployments. To mitigate these issues, we propose GasLiteAA, a framework that optimize ERC-4337 by offloading paymaster logic to Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). GasLiteAA delegates the secure execution of stateful gas sponsorship logic and user quota management to TEE, enforcing validation rules off-chain while anchoring their integrity on-chain via lightweight cryptographic attestations. This verifiable offloading architecture significantly reduces on-chain computation and storage costs without sacrificing verifiability or decentralization. Experimental results demonstrate that GasLiteAA substantially lowers transaction fees, while remaining fully compatible with Ethereum Layer 1. By balancing security, efficiency, and deployability, GasLiteAA provides a practical and scalable approach to gas sponsorship for account-abstraction-based decentralized applications. © 2026 IEEE.

AB - ERC-4337, the Ethereum account abstraction standard, simplifies account management and transaction fee payment in decentralized applications by introducing programmable smart contract wallets and gas sponsorship via paymasters. However, its heavy reliance on on-chain validation and frequent state updates incurs substantial gas overhead, leading to performance bottlenecks and limiting scalability in large-scale deployments. To mitigate these issues, we propose GasLiteAA, a framework that optimize ERC-4337 by offloading paymaster logic to Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). GasLiteAA delegates the secure execution of stateful gas sponsorship logic and user quota management to TEE, enforcing validation rules off-chain while anchoring their integrity on-chain via lightweight cryptographic attestations. This verifiable offloading architecture significantly reduces on-chain computation and storage costs without sacrificing verifiability or decentralization. Experimental results demonstrate that GasLiteAA substantially lowers transaction fees, while remaining fully compatible with Ethereum Layer 1. By balancing security, efficiency, and deployability, GasLiteAA provides a practical and scalable approach to gas sponsorship for account-abstraction-based decentralized applications. © 2026 IEEE.

KW - Blockchain

KW - trusted execution environment

KW - Account Abstraction

KW - Smart Contract

KW - ERC4337

KW - ZKP

KW - TEE

KW - Sharding

U2 - 10.1109/icbc67748.2026.11575476

DO - 10.1109/icbc67748.2026.11575476

M3 - RGC 32 - Refereed conference paper (with host publication)

SN - 979-8-3315-8634-8

BT - 2026 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC)

PB - IEEE

Y2 - 1 June 2026 through 5 June 2026

ER -

GasLiteAA: Optimizing ERC-4337 for Efficient and Secure Gas Sponsorship

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

Funding

Research Keywords

RGC Funding Information

Access Output

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Cite this