The two ways to run Auto — upgrading your own wallet with EIP-7702, or a separate Ava smart wallet you fund — and how each relates to your main wallet.
In Auto mode, Ava acts only inside an agent permission you sign, and that permission is enforced on-chain by a smart wallet — a smart-contract wallet (also called a smart account) that can check every call against your limits. Your main wallet is the one you already use (sometimes called an EOA, an ordinary key-based account). Read-only and Manual mode don't need a smart wallet: in Manual, you sign every transaction in your own wallet.
There are two ways to get a smart wallet for Auto. Either way, what bounds Ava is the permission — the contracts it allows, a total spending limit per token, an expiry and one chain — never full control of your wallet.
You make a one-time upgrade of your main wallet using EIP-7702 — an Ethereum standard that lets an ordinary wallet run smart-account code. It keeps the same address and the same keys, and you sign an authorization, not a transfer. Then you sign agent permissions against it, and Ava can act on your wallet and positions directly — only inside those permissions.
Only upgrade to the contract Ava shows: Alchemy's SemiModularAccount7702 at 0x69007702764179f14F51cdce752f4f775d74E139. A 7702 upgrade to an unknown contract is a known way wallets get drained. A wallet holds one upgrade at a time, so upgrading for Ava replaces any other upgrade on it.
To go back, undo the upgrade: one transaction from your wallet turns it back into a plain wallet, and Auto can no longer run on it on that network. It doesn't erase the permissions stored on your wallet, so if you might upgrade again, disable them and finish their on-chain removal first.
Best for: anyone who wants Ava to act on the wallet and positions they already have, without moving funds.
You set up a separate Ava smart wallet (Ava's is an ERC-4337 account) that your main wallet owns, fund it with the assets you want Ava to use (Deposit on the Wallets page in Ava Studio), and sign the permissions you want. It's permission-bound too, and it adds a hard ceiling: Ava can never spend more than you've funded into it. Your main holdings stay in your main wallet. You can Withdraw anytime, and withdrawals always go back to your main wallet.
If you already have an Aave position on your main wallet, you don't need to move it: health-factor protection repays or supplies on its behalf, paid from the smart wallet.
Best for: wallets that can't sign the upgrade, or anyone who wants a hard ceiling on what Ava can spend.
Upgrading your own wallet doesn't create a new wallet: your existing address starts running the SemiModularAccount7702 contract shown above, which you can check on a block explorer before you sign.
A separate Ava smart wallet is a new smart account created on-chain for you. It's Alchemy's Modular Account v2, a standard ERC-4337 smart account, owned by your main wallet.
Either way, the wallet itself enforces your agent permissions, for one-off Auto actions and standing jobs alike: a call outside what a permission allows, spending past its total limit, or any use after it expires is refused by the chain. Ava can't create or widen a permission — only a signature from your main wallet installs one — and revoking a permission stops every job and action that used it. See Permissions & Limits.
Both setups inherit security from your main wallet's keys: an upgraded wallet keeps the same keys, and a separate Ava smart wallet is owned by your main wallet. If you lose your main wallet, the recovery model depends on that wallet's own recovery (e.g. social recovery if you used a recovery-enabled wallet, or your seed phrase otherwise).
We do not custody a recovery path. There is no "email reset" for your wallet, by design.
Your upgraded wallet is still your wallet, and a separate Ava smart wallet is owned by your main wallet. Either way, its permissions are signed by your main wallet — not by your Telegram account. Telegram is the chat surface; the wallet is the source of truth.