Written by: Haotian
In accordance with the principle of saying more with less, I will briefly comment on the significance of @ParticleNtwrk's launch of the brand new 'chain abstraction' application trading platform, UniversalX:
1) 'Chain abstraction', as a mainstream narrative following modularization, aims to shift the paradigm from the current infrastructure split to an enhancement of user application experience. However, many people cannot intuitively grasp the significance of this transformation and even label chain abstraction with various 'misinterpretations'.
The UniversalX trading platform was born out of this background. Since the concept leaning towards the B-side cannot be intuitively grasped by everyone, it simply launched a C-side application product to drive 'intuitively'.
In essence, it has completed a narrative upgrade from 'protocol' to 'end', speaking through good products.
2) UniversalX is a chain-agnostic trading platform supported by universal accounts. In terms of functionality, it advocates for upgrades in user experience such as 'one account, one balance, any chain, no bridging, any Gas, fiat access', among others.
What seems simple is actually the result of 'abstracting' the complex chains, funds, and interaction environments; for instance, 'one account, one balance' means needing to unify the access to various isomorphic and heterogeneous chains and manage centralized balance scheduling. Users may not perceive the complexity, but the underlying protocol scheduling and control layer must tackle a significant amount of cross-chain interaction communication and other challenges.
Therefore, UniversalX is not a product that can be achieved overnight; it will continue to optimize various small details in subsequent iterations. It is also difficult to achieve perfection at the beginning, as the Crypto field always presents new complexities that need to be 'abstracted' for processing.
3) The strategic significance of UniversalX is grand, directly impacting the two mainstream industry forms of 'decentralized wallets' and 'centralized CEX'.
Taking custodial wallets as an example, most wallets are caught in the 'functional' differences, but they are merely a console for users to manage assets and cannot truly reach the level of a user 'entry point'. The reason lies in the fact that the differentiation in wallet functions itself can lead to a fragmentation of user experience, which is hard to change in the past development environment that emphasized 'heavy infrastructure, light applications'.
The approach of UniversalX, which aggregates various basic functions and unifies user experience from the start, will truly have a trend of 'entry' and will pose a threat to the moat of decentralized wallets.
The impact on centralized CEX is easier to understand. UniversalX, a product that nears the functionality of CEX but is entirely based on an on-chain environment, will catch a wave of on-chain DEX gradually surpassing CEX during a lucrative period. The final result is uncertain, but even lowering the participation threshold of the on-chain environment to a level that can compete with CEX is sufficient.
It is not difficult to find that this is a new species that has been redefined under the narrative of 'chain abstraction', aimed at upgrading user experience and based on application 'end' thinking.