Answer first — EIP-7702 lets any EOA temporarily attach a smart-contract code path for a single transaction (a "delegation"). For MEV in 2026, this means three structural shifts: multi-action transactions from regular wallets (batched approve+swap+claim, harder to front-run), sponsored bundles where a paymaster covers gas (changing the inclusion economics of priority fees), and new attack surface where malicious delegation targets can drain wallets if users sign blindly. Searchers must update their mempool parsers, MEV-share subscriptions, and revert guards to recognize 7702-style transactions, which look different on the wire than legacy EOA calls.
What 7702 Actually Does
In the pre-7702 world, an Ethereum transaction was either:
EOA-originated: A normal user wallet calls a contract directly. One target address. One value transfer or one method call per transaction.
Contract-originated (smart wallet / 4337): A smart-contract wallet (Safe, Argent, Kernel, Biconomy) can batch many operations into one transaction, but needs to be deployed first.
