If you have read about self-custody or recovery phrases on this blog, you already know the traditional model: your wallet is controlled by a private key, that key is backed up as a set of words, and whoever holds those words controls the funds. That model is not the only one on Base. A newer type of wallet, usually called a smart wallet, replaces the recovery phrase with a passkey, the same technology your phone already uses to unlock apps with your fingerprint or face. This article explains how that works, what it changes, and what it does not change.
Two different kinds of wallet
Every wallet on Base falls into one of two categories at the technical level.
The first is an externally owned account, often shortened to EOA. This is the traditional model. A private key signs your transactions directly, and that key is generated from a recovery phrase you write down. Simple Base Swap works this way, and so do most well known wallets.
The second is a smart contract wallet, sometimes called a smart account. Instead of a single private key doing the signing, your wallet is itself a small program deployed on the blockchain, and that program decides what counts as a valid signature. This is where things get more flexible, because a smart contract can be told to accept signatures that an EOA never could.
Coinbase Smart Wallet, launched in 2024, is a well known example built on this second model. It works across Base and several other EVM networks.
Where the passkey comes in
Passkeys are built on a broadly adopted standard called WebAuthn, and they already secure logins for many apps and websites outside of crypto. When you set one up, your device creates a key pair and stores the private half in its secure hardware, the same chip that protects Face ID or a fingerprint sensor. Nothing about that private key ever leaves the device or gets typed out as a word list.
The catch is that passkeys use different cryptography than a typical Ethereum wallet. A traditional EOA can only verify signatures made with one specific type of key, and a passkey does not produce that type. This is the actual reason smart wallets exist for this purpose: the wallet's own contract code can be written to check a passkey's signature, something a plain key based account cannot do. So instead of memorizing or storing a recovery phrase, you approve transactions with the same Face ID or fingerprint prompt you already use to unlock your phone.
What this changes in practice
A few things follow directly from having a programmable contract instead of a single key.
No recovery phrase to lose or leak. There are no 12 or 24 words for a phishing site to ask for, because there is nothing to type in the first place. The tradeoff is that recovery now depends on your device, your passkey backup through your phone's cloud account, or whatever recovery method the wallet provider builds in. That is a different set of risks, not an absence of risk.
Gas can be sponsored by someone else. Because a smart wallet is a contract, it can be paired with a separate helper contract called a paymaster that covers network fees on the user's behalf. This is how some Base apps let people transact without holding ETH for gas first. It is a convenience feature, not a rule that all smart wallets must offer it.
Multiple actions can be bundled into one approval. A smart account can be programmed to execute several steps from a single signature, where an EOA typically needs a separate signature for each one.
What stays the same
A smart wallet does not remove the core lessons that apply to every wallet on Base. You are still trusting a specific piece of code, so the same questions from our smart contract explainer apply: who wrote it, has it been audited, and how long has it been in use. Signing requests still deserve a careful read before you approve them, the same way we cover in our wallet signature requests article. And whatever backs up your access, whether that is a phrase or a device passkey, losing it without a backup still means losing access to your funds.
Which one should you use
Neither model is universally better, they are simply different tradeoffs.
A traditional recovery phrase wallet, like Simple Base Swap, gives you a backup that is completely independent of any company, device, or cloud account. Twelve words on paper will restore your funds on any compatible wallet, anywhere, for as long as blockchains exist. The cost is that the responsibility for protecting those words sits entirely with you.
A passkey based smart wallet trades some of that independence for convenience. Day to day use feels closer to a normal app, and there is nothing to write down. In exchange, your recovery path is tied to a device ecosystem and whatever backup mechanism your wallet provider has chosen to build.
Both are genuinely non-custodial in the sense that matters most: no company can freeze or seize your funds without your key or your passkey. The right choice comes down to which tradeoff fits how you actually use your wallet.
If you would rather hold a phrase you fully control, Simple Base Swap is a straightforward non-custodial wallet built for exactly one network. Start at app.simplebaseswap.com, or grab the iOS or Android app.