Written by: TechFlow
The wheel of history rolls forward, but not everything is progressing.
In February 2014, Bitcoin ATMs began to be installed in Boston train stations in the United States; you don’t need to know the working principles behind it, just put in cash, fill in the address, and the purchased BTC will be sent to your address.
There was no Ethereum at that time, and there was no so-called L1 and L2. Although everything was slow, it was simple enough.
Now it is July 2024, and things are starting to get complicated. Starting from Boston Train Station, a user takes a high-speed train and travels 10 years later, coming to today's crypto world with great expectations. What will he encounter?
He may be unable to move.
Hundreds of L1 and L2 have established their own territories to grab attention and liquidity; he needs to be more proficient in understanding mnemonics, signatures, authorization, cross-chain, gas storage, the difference between EVM and non-EVM...
For users, this is undoubtedly a setback and torture.
Ten years later, the demand for transactions has not diminished; but our experience in the crypto world may not be as good as the wild era when Bitcoin was first created.
In the call of "making everything simple", the term "chain abstraction" has never attracted as much attention as it does today. Industry pioneers regard it as a white knight and believe that it is the key technology to save the fragmented experience in the multi-chain era.
While the term chain abstraction is often seen in various high-end technical discussions, we hope that there will be products that users can immediately access and feel the improvement in their specific experience; and it would be best if they are simple enough.
Based on this idea, we looked for a dark horse that made chain abstraction simple, and Kontos caught our attention:
The first user-centric full-chain infrastructure powered by ZKP. No need to worry about private keys and mnemonics, no need to consider whether there is gas fee on the target chain, and support full-chain transactions and transfers.
More importantly, when using Kontos, you only see a more understandable entrance, and the rest of the technology is abstracted, just like the Bitcoin ATM at the train station - what you think is what you get, and intention is the result.
After ten years of twists and turns, a kind of reincarnation, those simple products tend to have a better market.
If you are interested in such products and chain abstraction, you may wish to read this issue together, find the antidote to broken experience from the development context of chain abstraction, and see how Kontos achieves simplicity.
Simple transactions, the foundation of chain abstraction
Before talking about Kontos’ specific products, it is necessary to understand more about the topic of chain abstraction.
When did you first hear the term chain abstraction?
A narrative has become popular. Whether it is doing things down to earth or taking advantage of the topic, there must be actual pain points behind it. Near founder Illia has keenly captured the core demands of users as early as January this year:
“End users don’t care about the underlying blockchain. They just want the application to work.”
This simple and plain appeal seems out of reach in the complex landscape of today's Web3 world - we have too many chains to choose from, too many modules to use, and too many assets to play with; but it is precisely in this abundance that we encounter the tediousness brought about by liquidity fragmentation and functional modularization.
You must carefully manage different wallets and mnemonics, be proficient in the use of various cross-chain bridges, reserve gas fees on the target chain you want to rush to, and figure out the difference between L1 and L2.
But, is this something you should figure out?
No industry has users who are more proficient in various "skill points" than Web3 users. In other industries, users are king and just need to be served;
In Web3, users are forced to become experts due to the exposure of technology, cumbersome operations and frequent accidents. They are full of knowledge, caution and self-service at all times.
In 1929, the United States experienced the famous "Great Depression" economic crisis. Job seekers with various skills could not find a simple job. In 2024, the experience crisis is happening all the time in the Web3 world. Users who are proficient in various operations cannot get a simple transaction experience.
In the echo of history, the demand for on-chain transactions never stops, but a simple trading experience never comes.
This is not simple enough. If you follow the long river of time to find the source, you will find that everything has a traceable origin:
In 2015, Ethereum’s dual account system (EOA and CA) was designed at the beginning. While innovative, it also laid hidden dangers. EOA could not execute complex contract logic alone, making it impossible to handle multiple functions in one interaction, and also left the fatal shackles of managing private keys to the most ordinary users.
As a result, account management and transaction interaction were not simple enough, which made "account abstraction" gradually become a thing of the past.
In 2020, Polkadot was launched. The design of parachains and relay chains has taken shape for inter-chain communication, providing an early solution to the fragmentation of liquidity in the coming multi-chain era, and also somewhat addressing the issue of cross-chain interoperability.
As a result, cross-chain interoperability is not simple enough, so the concept of "omnichain" gradually came onto the historical stage;
In 2023, during its development, NEAR also realized that the surge in L1 and L2 led to a decline in user experience, and the blockchain itself must be abstracted from users; other projects also realized the same problem and began to make efforts.
Therefore, all the above-mentioned difficulties are stacked together, making the word "chain abstraction" come to the center of the stage in the history of encryption development in pursuit of simple experience.
Fast forward to now. And this time, it's Kontos' turn.
One entrance, everything
Everyone talks about chain abstraction, but what will the end user see?
Users don’t really care whether a chain is able to have chain abstraction capabilities or an SDK is provided to provide chain abstraction capabilities.
The only thing that can best allow users to perceive the benefits of chain abstraction is the entrance.
Therefore, in the Kontos product, the first thing you can feel is just an entrance that looks similar to a wallet - listing assets, trading assets and transferring assets, and everything is based on trading needs first.
But this entrance is all-encompassing.
The advantages that Kontos brings to users with chain abstraction appear in a less ostentatious way - the complexity of using blockchain-native applications is completely abstracted into a unified interface layer, creating a chain-agnostic global point of contact for anyone who wants it.
And this contact point is the entrance you see. All the complexity is encapsulated, so that you even feel that this is a wallet that is not complicated at all.
However, as your experience deepens, you can clearly feel the elegance of simplicity.
First, the account is created.
You can directly register a wallet using a "user name" without having to manage any private keys or mnemonics. You will then find that this username manages all assets on all chains, and you don't need to switch RPC and networks like MetaMask, and you don't even need to understand these.
When you need to restore your wallet, Kontos also provides two more intuitive operations: mailbox recovery and guardian recovery. The former is to restore your account by sending an email to the specified mailbox after you set up a safe mailbox; while the latter is to designate your own guardian, send the public key to the guardian, and let them click to confirm in Kontos to restore their account, which is the social recovery that Vitalik often mentions.
The benefits of doing this are obvious. Users do not need to understand complex cryptography, public-private key pairing, and key management, which is closer to the product experience of Web2.
Crypto accounts should not be a stumbling block for new users, nor a custody burden for old users. Kontos has made this simple enough, but has put in more effort behind the scenes:
This .OS username actually serves as a global account. When connecting different L1/L2, it also integrates the functions of social login, authentication and wallet. In the end, you only have one username to manage everything.
Secondly, the transactions are truly "chain-independent".
Kontos has currently been integrated with 17 blockchain networks, so users don’t have to worry about which chain they are on or whether there are gas fees on that chain.
As shown in the figure below, you can directly initiate a purchase request on Kontos, and use USDT on Polygon to smoothly exchange PEPE on Arbitrum. The system will automatically calculate the required handling fee for you and encapsulate the exchange logic.
The lack of gas on Arbitrum is not a problem here. You don’t even need to understand the hard-core logic that gas on different chains needs to be pre-stored in advance. You only know that you can complete the transaction by paying a handling fee.
You just need to exchange any coin for any coin, and Kontos becomes a useful "anywhere door". This is a very intuitive experience that reflects the benefits of chain abstraction, similar to driving a car without worrying about how the engine, gears and other parts work, just drive it smoothly.
Players who have crossed chains know that you need to understand the rules of each chain, understand the transaction process executed by the cross-chain bridge, repeated signatures, understand the so-called optimal path, understand that assets have undergone multiple rounds of conversion, etc.
When using Kontos to transfer assets, you do not need to understand the rules of the operation process itself, nor do you need to care about various signatures and interactions.
However, how is this smooth inter-chain asset exchange and global gas achieved?
Kontos actually acts as a universal multi-chain hub. When users initiate task requests, they only need to focus on two main factors: the target asset they want to purchase and their ability to pay.
This is because Kontos introduces the role of Broker, which acts as the user's agent and is responsible for handling all transaction details on the chain. When a user initiates a request, the Broker will evaluate the user's payment ability and use the user's payment assets to purchase the target asset based on real-time market conditions. In this process, the Broker will decide on its own how to pay the Gas fee on the target chain.
For users, all of this is transparent. They only need to make sure they have enough assets to pay the total cost of the request. The specific Gas payment and exchange details are handled by the Broker.
This design greatly simplifies the user's operation process and provides a more intuitive and seamless user experience. Users no longer need to manage Gas tokens of different chains, nor do they need to understand complex exchange paths. Kontos encapsulates these complexities at the Broker layer, allowing users to focus on their own needs.
However, it should be emphasized that although Broker provides great convenience for users, users still retain absolute control over their assets. Broker can only perform designated tasks according to the user's authorization and cannot use user funds without authorization. This ensures the security of user assets.
In the stacking of the above account management, asset management and transaction details, the true significance of chain abstraction is revealed:
There is no need to pay attention to the process, and complex operations can be abstracted into "one-click completion". What you think is what you get, and your intention is the result.
Therefore, overall, we feel that Kontos is very intuitive and easy to use. It can be used as the first wallet for new crypto users, and can also be used as an alternative entry for old users seeking "experience liberation".
The less you worry about, and the more it conforms to user logic, the greater the value the entrance can bring.
Currently, Kontos has Discord/PC/mobile wallets available. Interested players can click here to experience it.
Technical packaging, complexity for ourselves, security for users
On the user side, the entrance presented by Kontos is simple enough.
Leaving simplicity to users and complexity to ourselves, this design philosophy needs more technical encapsulation to carry it. Therefore, the concept of chain abstraction sounds short, but behind it are multiple components that should not be exposed to users, performing a collective encapsulation.
Go a step deeper and explore the core of Kontos, and you will feel that the high-frequency buzzwords you often hear have undergone multiple considerations and polishing in actual implementation.
For example, you may have heard of chain abstraction, which is to easily access and interact with various blockchains.
But when Kontos is implemented, there are more behind-the-scenes heroes at work: target chain state synchronization + ZK proof + Broker network.
A bit confusing? Let’s break it down.
Lightweight client verification: Kontos runs a lightweight client for each chain on its network, with the purpose of obtaining the block headers and status of other chains and verifying the correctness of these block headers directly on Kontos. ----Can verify the status of any chain
ZK Proof: When other chains need to verify the status of Kontos, Kontos uses a recursive zk-SNARK proof scheme. Through this scheme, other chains only need to verify the last layer of zk-SNARK proof to confirm the status of a large number of blocks on Kontos, thereby greatly improving the efficiency of cross-chain verification.
Broker: When users perform cross-chain operations on external chains, the Broker service will prepay the fees and assets --- making the user experience smoother.
Similarly, account abstraction, which you may have heard of, is the abstraction of the functions and permissions of an account on the blockchain, allowing the account to perform more complex operations.
Kontos has also done more work, designing the account into a two-layer model: the top layer is the user-friendly account name (XXX.OS) used when registering, which is easy to remember and manage; the bottom layer associates the account name with the AA account on each public chain.
In this way, social recovery + private keyless mnemonics can coexist.
Additionally, you may have overlooked asset abstraction, where Kontos acts as a universal gas hub, enabling users to pay transaction fees with any asset on any blockchain.
With chain abstraction, it is a bit like when you are traveling, you don’t have to worry about the environment of the target country, nor do you have to worry about the local currency of the target country.
Ultimately, these abstractions together create the effect of “behavioral abstraction” — users can complete their intent with one click, with multiple components working behind the scenes to support it.
Now let’s open it again and see how this seemingly simple thing of “using USDT on Polygon to buy Degen tokens on Base” is implemented in Kontos:
User-initiated task: Through the H5 page or App, initiate a task to use USDT on Polygon to purchase Degen tokens on Base.
The user's purchase intention is posted on the task board, which assigns the task to the Broker network.
The nodes in the Broker network receive the task and start to perform the cross-chain operation. After completing the cross-chain operation, a task proof is generated.
The task proof is sent to the Prover network, which verifies the task proof and generates a light-client proof.
The Relayer network is responsible for synchronizing the block headers of the Polygon and Base blockchains, and synchronizing the block headers of Kontos to these blockchain networks to ensure the consistency and security of cross-chain data.
In the end, the complexity is left to oneself and the simplicity is left to the users, achieving an excellent experience that is almost completely imperceptible when using it.
A good infrastructure may make people feel that the infrastructure does not exist, but only the smooth interactive front-end application; and the ultimate dream of a trader and user is actually to keep it simple.
In addition, under this design, a very critical but easily overlooked point is safety.
Since signing transactions and executing transactions are separated into two roles (user and broker), this means that users do not need to execute transactions directly, but let other participants do it on their behalf.
All users need to do is click a button to sign a transaction, and they can outsource all on-chain requirements to experienced participants who will then be responsible for finding the best execution.
The sophisticated participant then takes on the risk of interacting with all the different applications on L1 and L2, the associated gas fees for different tokens on different chains, reorganization risk (where there are two different versions of the chain), and other execution risks.
By taking on these steps and risks, the problem solver will price the fees it charges users accordingly.
In this case, users do not need to consider the various complexities and associated risks of using on-chain products and services, as this is an issue that other problem-solving agents in the market need to consider.
Not CEX, but better than the future of CEX
When researching Kontos products and sorting out the development context of chain abstraction, the author has actually been thinking, what is the best form of chain abstraction products?
Perhaps, the best form has already come, but it is not pure enough.
Recalling the CEX we are most familiar with, isn’t it a kind of chain abstraction?
You don’t need to care about which chain your assets are on, nor do you need to manage various keys. You can store and access assets freely and trade them at will. However, the business of CEX is not on the chain, but the off-chain database projects the on-chain state. However, it also achieves the experience that chain abstraction wants to achieve.
From a more decentralized and Crypto Native perspective, chain abstraction may be more like an on-chain version of CEX in the future, with experience first and technology encapsulation.
A popular saying is that the future is already here, it’s just distributed unevenly.
Chain abstraction-related businesses are bound to be a shortcut to attract more users for Mass Adoption. Whoever has a ready-made product will be able to capture the user's mind earlier.
The sporadic projects we see now but have not yet been commonly used may become the vanguard of leading a better Web3 user experience in the future.
From the perspective of product experience and technical architecture, Kontos has achieved simplicity and smoothness, so it is definitely worth a try; but whether it can become the "only choice" depends on the project's GTM strategy and the evolution of the entire market situation.
In addition, around DID, after accumulating sufficient usage, Kontos can also expect more businesses around data opening, retrieval and analysis.
Where there is demand, there will be a market; but who will seize the market of chain abstraction, let us wait and see in the future.