Why is chain abstraction becoming the next big mainstream narrative?

Why has "chain abstraction" become another popular mainstream narrative after "modularity"? In addition to the seemingly "fake and empty" goal of Mass Adoption, I think the real core reasons are as follows:

1) Chain abstraction is inevitable after modularization reaches a certain stage, because the blockchain technology architecture roughly includes consensus layer, execution layer, DA layer, interoperability, settlement layer, etc. In the traditional sense, a monolithic single chain needs to coordinate the comprehensive strengthening of each layer, but modularization breaks this situation.

Parts such as the DA layer, interoperability layer and even execution layer can be isolated for performance optimization and function in a composable collaborative manner. Therefore, "modularization" has become the mainstream paradigm for developers to seek differentiation in chain construction. This entrepreneurial methodology, which is low-cost and has a strong narrative, and the key is that it does not have to worry too much about long-term issues such as ecological operations, has gradually become mainstream.

However, modularization essentially takes infra infrastructure as its main goal. When excessive development efforts are too concentrated in the direction of modularization, it will cause an imbalance between infra and applications, leading to the embarrassing situation of more infrastructure than applications.

Obviously, the emergence of "chain abstraction" is precisely to break this embarrassing situation, reintegrate the blockchain components that have been torn apart by modularization, improve the experience level, lower the user Onboard threshold, and then promote the growth of applications. In a sense, chain abstraction will make up for the ecological and application imbalance caused by modularization and become an indispensable narrative in the next stage.

2) Chain abstraction itself is just a general concept, which can be roughly divided into three specific implementation directions:

1. Providing tool services to promote the compatibility of heterogeneous chains, with the goal of seamlessly integrating different blockchains environment, increasing the application proportion of the service itself. For example, Chainlink’s CCIP;

2. Unify liquidity as an intermediate chain and become an aggregation dispatch center, which mainly gathers dispersed assets on different chains and uses safer and more transparent cross-chain information transmission to build a unified liquidity layer (cross-chain assets). chain, message passing). For example, @0xPolygon's agglayer, @ProjectZKM's Entangled Rollup Network, etc.;

3. Adapt various heterogeneous chains and launch a unified user interaction experience layer, and build a unified system based on the compatibility and adaptation of a series of tools or services The contract dispatch center, the decentralized Solver service coordination center, and other unified gas payment, social login, social recovery and other user experiences are used to lower the user's participation threshold and attract more users into the circle. For example, the BOS operating system launched by @NEARProtocol, the intent solver execution network launched by @dappOS_com for popular applications such as GMX, @ParticleNtwrk's full-chain account abstraction and intent fusion solutions, etc.;

It should be said that some of these are more technical. End services, and some focus on user front-end experience upgrades, all in order to unify the decentralized blockchain single-chain environment, and use full-chain seamless interaction and experience upgrades to expand incremental users in the blockchain application market.

3) The "chain abstraction" track is more likely to be favored by VCs and has become the key to the integration of web2 and web3. At the earliest, Ethereum ERC4337 sparked a wave of account abstract wallet development. The main reason was that a group of web2 Internet executives entered the market with financing. This is the easiest area for them to understand and use their expertise when they are new to web3. Chain abstraction further enriches the business scope based on account abstraction, but it is still the main direction of efforts of some people with rich experience and background in web2.

Compared with the purely conceptual orientation of modularization, chain abstraction technology is more low-level. The team needs to use real industry resource aggregation and asset TVL accumulation as well as user data growth and accumulation.

Compared with constantly using "xxxx as a service" to outline the modular direction of the commercial space, it is easier for VCs to give relatively objective valuations, and users can also see the value growth of the chain itself through objective data, thus helping them to develop in the second phase. The sub-market has better reference for investment valuation.

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