Ambire is a self-custodial, open-source Web3 wallet for Ethereum and EVM networks that gives ordinary accounts smart-account powers without asking users to change address. It is available as a browser extension and, since September 28, 2026, as a rebuilt iOS and Android app with the same feature set.
Ambire shipped smart contract wallets in December 2021, years before account abstraction became mainstream. That first product (v1) proved the features people want: gas paid in stablecoins, transaction batching, key rotation and recovery. It also showed the main barrier to adoption: users would not abandon the addresses they already had.
Ambire v2 answers that barrier. It is built on hybrid account abstraction and, since Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade on May 7, 2025, on EIP-7702, which lets an existing EOA run Ambire’s audited smart account code while keeping its address and key.
In 2026 three developments define the project: the Ethereum Foundation’s Kohaku privacy SDK is built on a fork of Ambire, and privacy is now a core product pillar; Safe multisig accounts can be managed natively in Ambire; and the Ambire Rewards incentive program has ended, with $WALLET utility shifting to staking, fee discounts funded by real usage, buybacks and governance.
This paper supersedes the 2022 and 2025 whitepapers. It covers the project’s origins, the v1 to v2 transition, the current product, the roadmap and the role of the $WALLET token.
Ambire grew out of AdEx, the decentralized ad network the same team founded in 2017 and ran as one of the largest payment-channel networks on Ethereum (LinkedIn). The team has worked on account abstraction since 2018 (blog).
Ambire Wallet launched publicly on December 16, 2021 as a web wallet, and was the first open-source, non-custodial wallet with email and password sign-up (launch post). A $2.5M funding round led by LAUNCHub Ventures closed the same month (Crypto Events).
The v1 architecture Every v1 account was a smart contract wallet. Control sat with one or more signers: an email and password key pair, a browser wallet such as MetaMask, or a Trezor or Ledger device. Signers could be added or revoked at any time, and because signers only sign messages, hardware wallets gained features like batching and gas abstraction (help center).
The email and password account was a 2-of-2 scheme: one key encrypted in the user’s browser, the other held by Ambire’s relayer, with a timelocked recovery path. A backend relayer broadcast transactions, which enabled paying gas in ERC-20 tokens, Flashbots routing and email login (IQ.wiki).
The 2022 product added multi-account and cross-chain support, WalletConnect, an NFT dashboard, a built-in swap, prepaid gas via the Gas Tank, and a mobile app ( $\underline{2022}$ roadmap). Within 12 months v1 reached almost 100,000 accounts (2022 recap).
The 2022 whitepaper and the $WALLET launch The 2022 whitepaper presented Ambire as a DeFi wallet governed by its users through the WalletDAO and the $WALLET token. The token launched on January 29, 2022 through a Huobi Primelist event, with 6M tokens (0.6% of supply) sold at $0.03 (token announcement). $WALLET was separated from AdEx’s ADX because the two products earn revenue differently and the wallet needed its own tokenomics without diluting ADX holders.
Early users earned $WALLET continuously from launch day, in proportion to their balance in the wallet, and could stake into the xWALLET pool (help center).
Ambire moved from “a new smart contract wallet for every user” to “smart features for the account you already have”. The goal never changed: make self-custody easy and secure. What changed was the vehicle, once Ethereum itself offered a better one (extension launch).
Why we changed course Three years of running v1 in production taught us why account abstraction was stalling (blog):