Chain Abstraction: Triangular Prism in the Multi-Chain Era

By: 0XNATALIE

As a key entry point in the Crypto/Web3 ecosystem, wallets have always been the focus of competition for entrepreneurial teams. In addition to wallet products supporting new public chains, many teams hope to completely improve the experience of MetaMask (such as Rabby). While wallet teams are still focusing on account abstraction, the higher-dimensional chain abstraction narrative is gradually attracting community attention.

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin recently wrote about the concept of chain abstraction and indicated NEAR's vision for implementing chain abstraction. In addition, projects such as ZetaChain, modular L1 Particle Network, and the full-chain ledger Cycle Network, which went live last month, are all exploring the implementation of chain abstraction.

Why is chain abstraction important?

Consider a question, why is the user experience and user base of Web3 products far lower than Web2? One important reason is that users of many projects now need to understand various principles and concepts, and the rapid development of Web3 is evident to all, with new narratives and concepts emerging constantly. Even Web3 veterans may feel that "the hot changes are too fast and learning is too troublesome."

For example, a simple example, a cross-chain bridge protocol first requires users to understand that assets cannot be interoperable, so a bridging protocol is needed to transfer assets between different chains. Secondly, it must be understood that if you want to transfer assets from Ethereum to Solana, you need to pay ETH as gas fees, not SOL. Why is it so troublesome to just use 100 USDT on Ethereum to buy an NFT in the Solana ecosystem?

In contrast, Web2 products are almost all packaged, users do not need to know the principles, nor do they know the cooperation relationships behind them. Following the logic of Web2 product experience, if I want to buy an NFT in the Solana ecosystem, I just need to log into my wallet on the NFT project interface, use the 100 USDT in my wallet to buy directly, and finally I only need to know how much money is left in my wallet and whether the NFT has arrived.

Chain abstraction abstracts the differences and complexities between different blockchains into a unified interface, allowing users and developers to interact and operate seamlessly on different chains. The ultimate goal is for users to not perceive the existence of the chain, while still enjoying the benefits of decentralized blockchains, combined with intent, the user experience will be smoother. Imagine, users only need to have enough assets, no matter what token on which chain, they can trade as they wish, set the timing and conditions of the transaction, and ensure that the transaction is safe, private, and completely under their control.

Gradual implementation of chain abstraction

In the current multi-chain environment, not only has the user experience become complex, but liquidity is also decentralized, hindering the widespread adoption of blockchain technology. An effective way to integrate liquidity is to establish an independent platform that provides a unified interface for interactive operations, that is, to implement a platform for chain abstraction.

Particle Network is such an L1 that provides an SDK for implementing chain abstraction. It abstracts accounts, gas, and liquidity to create an open network access layer behind dapps that users are unaware of:

• Universal Accounts: Users can use the same account on different chains for transactions and operations. The master contract controls AA accounts on more than 50 chains, connecting account addresses to speed up transaction packaging and cross-chain transactions (within 5 seconds). This also means unlocking more application scenarios, such as stablecoins for omnichains.

• Universal Gas Token: Introducing a universal gas token (SPARTI), users can use this token to pay transaction fees on different chains. There is no need to hold specific gas tokens on each chain, reducing the cost and complexity of cross-chain transactions. Additionally, Particle Network integrates EigenLayer, enhancing network security by dual pledging SPARTI tokens with Ethereum.

• Universal Liquidity: By implementing liquidity abstraction, liquidity from different chains is aggregated. For example, using USDT to buy BTC in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Particle Network acts as a liquidity aggregation protocol, supporting cross-chain atomic transaction execution.

The underlying architecture of Particle Network adopts the Cosmos SDK and ensures network security through the CometBFT consensus engine. This modular underlying architecture allows Particle Network to flexibly expand and customize to meet the needs of different application scenarios. In addition, Particle Network uses an aggregated DA that does not depend on a single party (such as Celestia or EigenDA), enhancing data availability by storing copies of data in multiple locations.

Preparing for the application explosion with chain abstraction

The era of multiple chains also means the era of layering (rollup), in this context, chain abstraction is like a prism that aggregates multiple beams of light into one, unifying multiple chains, solving problems such as high entry barriers and user education difficulties, avoiding operations that affect the experience such as users needing to deal with multiple accounts, network switching, fees, etc. With more and more projects and technical teams joining the construction of chain abstraction, we look forward to chain abstraction becoming a key driving force for advancing the Web3 ecosystem, bringing a more unified, convenient, and secure user experience to Web3, and promoting the mainstream adoption process.