Externally Owned Account (EOA)
eth · account
An EOA is an Ethereum account controlled by a private key, used to sign transactions and hold ETH or tokens.
EOAs are user-controlled accounts that sign and initiate transactions. They have an address, nonce, and balance, and their signed transactions can transfer assets, call contracts, or deploy new contracts on EVM networks.
Contract accounts execute code and are controlled by their logic, not by a single private key. Account abstraction designs move more wallet behavior into programmable accounts, enabling features such as paymasters, batched actions, and custom recovery.
Related terms
Ethereum (ETH)
→Ethereum is a proof-of-stake smart contract blockchain; ETH is its native asset used for gas, staking, and settlement.
coin · blockchain · platform · smart contract
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
→The EVM is the deterministic runtime that executes smart contract bytecode on Ethereum and EVM-compatible networks.
eth · platform · smart contract