Julien Niset: Argent, building on StarkNet, and a primer on account abstraction

Julien Niset is the cofounder and Chief Science Officer at Argent, a crypto wallet that's used and loved by many people in the crypto ecosystem.
In this conversation, we talk about how Argent has evolved to get to where it is today. How Julien sees user experience evolving broadly in the ecosystem, and what the flow of a new person interacting with a crypto application for the first time might look like in the future.

Another topic we get into deeply is L2s, how Julien and Argent have thought about the topic of EVM equivalence and compatibility, and why they ultimately chose to build on ZK Rollups like ZkSync and StarkNet.

And lastly, we dive into what has been like to build on StarkNet, what the early community feels like today, what it's been like to write code in Cairo, and as a bit of a snapshot into this experience we do a deep dive into what account abstraction looks like on StarkNet.

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) - intro
(00:01:56) - leaning into zk rollups and account abstraction
(00:07:29) - scaling the self-custody experience
(00:13:20) - what onboarding users to crypto will look like in 3 years
(00:20:24) - some of the friction points that still need to be abstracted
(00:33:52) - L2s and the trade-offs between different rollups
(00:39:45) - is breaking EVM-equivalency worth it?
(00:48:01) - Julien’s experience in the StarkNet ecosystem
(00:58:24) - a technical primer on account abstraction
(01:15:38) - session keys
(01:28:17) - starting a sensible wallet set up from scratch

Links:
Julien Niset - https://twitter.com/jniset
Argent - https://www.argent.xyz/
StarkNet - https://starkware.co/starknet/
zkSync - https://zksync.io/
Topology - https://www.topology.gg/

Into the Bytecode:
- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab
- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab
- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com

Disclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed.