Written by: Haotian

The news that @ParticleNtwrk received investment from Binance labs has sparked heated discussions in the market. Some people say that this is a market signal that $PARTI has locked in Binance in advance. On the contrary, I would like to reiterate my view that "chain abstraction" will become a hot topic after "modularization". In addition to the enthusiasm of VCs and exchanges, the entire track's upstream and downstream supporting facilities have been cultivated for a long time.

1) Although chain abstraction and modularization are of the same origin, the goal of modularization is to improve the efficiency of development combinations and promote the prosperity of market infrastructure, while the goal of chain abstraction is to enhance user experience and pave the way for the rapid expansion of incremental users. Therefore, both are essentially about injecting productivity into Crypto, and "chain abstraction" is more down-to-earth and is the next stop of "modularization".

2) At first glance, "chain abstraction" is also an empty narrative, but the fact that chain abstraction has come to the fore shows that market development resources are already sufficient and the competitive environment is already very severe. The reason is simple. Modularization only requires selecting any one layer such as the DA layer, the Execution layer, the interoperability layer, and making a differentiation point to outline a grand scene, but chain abstraction is obviously not possible.

Chain abstraction needs to excel in market operation, resource access, capital accumulation, user experience and reputation, etc. Particle Network is one of the best.

3) "Chain abstraction" has a strong input of "mature" product power of web2. In the past, people criticized the wallets, chains, and protocols of the web3 world as "grassroots teams", but with the involvement of mainstream web capital and talents, web2's products, operations, and business systems have gradually penetrated into web3. For a long time, such products have been mainly cultivated in silence, but the "chain abstraction" narrative has moved to the focus narrative stage, which will give them more opportunities to surface.

4) In addition to Particle, I will just list a few more upstream and downstream projects:

1) @ProjectZKM is a unified liquidity aggregation and mobilization center based on ZK technology, abstracting the liquidity of non-EVM chains such as EVM and BTC;

2) @dappOS_com launched the Solver execution network, driving the shift of intent transaction paradigm from the application server side;

3) @ApertureFinance integrates intent to customize the trading experience, and has accumulated a huge user base through applications in B-end institutions and C-end users;

4) @cyclenetwork_GO focuses on Bridgeless’ full-chain liquidity unified service agreement, and also has Binance incubation support;

In addition, there are many applications and service platforms such as @NEARProtocol, @bentobatch, @khalani_network, etc. that optimize the front-end experience and even integrate AI Agents.

From upstream standards such as ERC4337 to service agreements for a unified liquidity scheduling layer, and then to applications that have already directly faced the consumer market and have accumulated user audiences on both the B-end and the C-end, the entire chain abstraction track is relatively mature, with more realistic application scenarios and perfect business expectations. (The valuation standards of the secondary market will also be different.

In general, "chain abstraction" will also be dominated by the narrative of infra > application in the short term. Many people are worried that Fomo will come up with a bunch of protocols and chains and go back to the old path of modularization. However, chain abstraction requires a competition of comprehensive strength, and the reshuffle and competition will be faster. The key is that the direction of industry evolution and the promotion of mature product strength behind it cannot be underestimated, and it is worth paying long-term attention to treasure hunting.