Why has "chain abstraction" become another mainstream hot narrative after "modularization"? In addition to the seemingly "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 and strengthen each layer, but modularization breaks this situation.
The DA layer, interoperability layer, and even the execution layer can all be taken out 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 low-cost and narrative-rich entrepreneurial methodology, which is key and does not require excessive concerns about long-term issues such as ecological operations, has gradually become mainstream.
However, modularization is essentially based on 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 an embarrassing situation where infrastructure exceeds applications.
Obviously, the emergence of "chain abstraction" is to break this embarrassing situation, reintegrate the blockchain components that have been torn apart by modularization, improve the experience level, lower the threshold for users to onboard, and then promote the growth of applications. In a sense, chain abstraction will make up for the imbalance of ecology and applications 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. Provide tool services to promote the compatibility of heterogeneous chains, with the goal of seamlessly integrating different blockchain environments and increasing the application share of the service itself. For example, @chainlink's CCIP;
2. Serving as an aggregation and dispatching center to unify the liquidity of the middle chain, mainly aggregating the decentralized assets on different chains, and using safer and more transparent cross-chain information transmission to build a unified liquidity layer (asset cross-chain, message transmission). For example, @0xPolygon's agglayer, @ProjectZKM's Entangled Rollup Network, etc.
3. Adapt to various heterogeneous chains and launch a unified user interaction experience layer. On the basis of a series of tool or service compatibility adaptation, build a unified contract scheduling center, a decentralized solver service coordination center, and other unified gas payment, social login, social recovery and other user experiences, so as to lower the user participation threshold and attract more users to join the circle. For example, the BOS operating system initiated by @NEARProtocol, the intent solver execution network launched by @dappOS_com for popular applications such as GMX, the full-chain account abstraction and intent fusion solution of @ParticleNtwrk, etc.;
It should be said that some of these services are more technical backend services, while others are more user frontend experience upgrades. They are all aimed at unifying the decentralized blockchain single-chain environment and expanding incremental users in the blockchain application market through seamless interaction and experience upgrades across the entire chain.
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 first, Ethereum ERC4337 led to a wave of account abstraction wallet development, mainly because 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 first entered web3. Chain abstraction further enriches the business scope based on account abstraction, but it is still the main focus of some people with rich experience and background in web2.
Compared with the purely conceptual orientation of modularization, chain abstraction technology is more bottom-level, and the team needs to use real industry resource aggregation, asset TVL precipitation, and user data growth accumulation.
Compared with using "xxxx as a service" to outline the modular direction of commercial space, VCs are more likely to give relatively objective valuations, and users can also see the value growth of the chain itself through objective data, thus having a better reference for investment valuation in the secondary market.
