Previous:Carlos Maximiliano Cano
Compiled by: TechFlow
Since the emergence of the first smart contract networks, the field of blockchain interoperability has emerged with the explicit goal of allowing users to freely navigate in a multi-chain environment, regardless of the standards, architecture, and economic structure of the different blockchains.
Meanwhile, the race to build better blockchains and scale existing ones continues, leading to the following:
Blockchain is faster and cheaper than ever before and continues to launch and evolve.
Modular scalability via L2s/L3s is fully integrated into the overall Web3 roadmap and culture, but comes with the side effect of fragmentation.
Interoperability and cross-chain technologies are designed to interconnect blockchains, but fail to independently solve the larger user experience problems of Web3.
Chain Abstraction, as the ultimate solution to transform a modular ecosystem into a borderless ecosystem, abstracts the complexity of interacting with multiple chains.
The evolution of blockchain. In the current rapidly expanding modular paradigm, some ecosystems inevitably become isolated.
As the Web3 experience shifts in paradigm, it’s worth considering: if chain abstraction solutions are designed to create a borderless, unified ecosystem that enables users to move across chains easily (and often unconsciously), then how do they differ from interoperability and cross-chain solutions?
This article aims to answer this question while providing a comprehensive overview of the deep relationship between these two concepts and their evolution over time.
Demystifying blockchain interoperability and chain abstraction
Because the terms blockchain interoperability and chain abstraction are often confused, it is important to clearly and narrowly define the two:
Interoperability
The term “interoperability” is used a lot in Web3, and as mentioned in the introduction, it often means different things. In order to provide a definition broad enough to encompass all the different solutions that are categorized under this term while clearly demarcating its boundaries, we can use the following definition:
Interoperability solutions: refer to different components and technologies that facilitate the interaction of one chain with one or more other chains. These solutions can be user-oriented or developer-oriented, facilitating cross-chain usage within a dApp or as a standalone product.
Therefore, blockchain interoperability solutions can also take the form of simple communication primitives, or be built into relatively complex products, some of which have become an important part of the current Web3 paradigm (such as bridging). An incomplete list of these solutions includes:
Cross-chain bridges facilitate the transfer of assets between chains.
Atomic swap protocol that allows users to exchange assets in one chain for assets in another chain.
Arbitrary Message Bridges (AMBs) allow blockchains to exchange messages. Developers use AMBs to promote interoperability between dApps and other products or infrastructure.
Dedicated interoperability protocols based on DEX (e.g. ThorChain).
Chain Abstraction
As a quick recap from our previous article, Chain Abstraction (ChA) is the ecosystem’s organic response to the ongoing problem of Web3 fragmentation. It is defined as “the user experience being unaffected by the manual processes required to interact with multiple chains” and to be fully realized requires the presence of multiple technology layers at various levels of the technology stack. This is demonstrated below:
The three levels of chain abstraction, and the problems each level solves.
The relationship between interoperability and chain abstraction solutions
We have discussed in detail how interoperability technologies are fundamental elements in enabling the chain abstraction experience.
Interoperability solutions are largely the cornerstones that Chain Abstraction (ChA) builds upon. Without the foundation laid by bridges, messaging protocols, and other solutions, it would be impossible to imagine a streamlined multi-chain process. Therefore, we can say that the field we know today as “Chain Abstraction” is in part a result of putting interoperability solutions at the service of improving the multi-chain experience.
This is why we see blockchain interoperability (along with account abstraction and intent) as one of the three foundational technologies that will improve the user experience of Web3, and the main driver of the ChA revolution:
Together with account abstraction and intent, interoperability solutions aim to abstract the complexity of Web3 and drive a frictionless future.
Leveraging blockchain interoperability solutions to achieve chain abstraction
Here, it is worth exploring how interoperability can be used to build chain abstraction solutions. To do this, we can revisit our integration depth framework.
The framework is based on the idea that any component that achieves some level of “eliminating the manual processes required for multi-chain interactions” can be considered a chain abstraction solution. Therefore, interoperability technologies, such as cross-chain messaging solutions, are still part of the chain abstraction stack, but are mainly implemented in “deeper” integrations that leverage them to achieve chain abstraction in multiple areas of the user experience.
Interoperability solutions exist at the foundation of the ChA stack, facilitating the creation of deeper implementations.
Blockchain interoperability: Evolving towards chain abstraction
To get to the main conclusion of this article, let’s now consider two key points:
As mentioned earlier, chain abstraction serves interoperability solutions to improve the multi-chain experience.
As interoperability solutions become more mature and prevalent within the industry, we could see their providers attempt to provide composable, complex solutions for developers and end users – in other words, seek to provide deeper ChA solutions.
The latter can be seen in the case of Stargate, a product from LayerZero. LayerZero’s first live product was a low-level communication primitive for building cross-chain dApps. After launching the protocol, the team behind LZ decided to bring these primitives to life to create a fully composable cross-chain bridging solution that is the first of its kind. Due to its full composability, the bridge can be seen as a midpoint between a foundational solution and a coordination solution, solving the increasingly complex problems required for a ChA experience.
The StarGate bridge solves the blockchain bridging trilemma by leveraging interoperability solutions to enable deeper ChA features.
Another example is Socket. Originally a cross-chain liquidity layer (SocketLL) and data layer (SocketDL) for blockchain interoperability and bridging, Socket eventually combined its products into Bungee. Bungee is essentially a bridge aggregator that selects the cheapest, fastest, and most liquid bridge based on user preferences. Later, they realized that chain abstraction is integral to solving fragmentation and driving the development of Web3 user experience, so began building Socket 2.0, a modular and extensible coordination chain abstraction protocol for developers to build chain-agnostic applications.
A shift in the tide
The above examples illustrate what we can expect to be a growing trend in Web3: interoperability solutions becoming core to the multi-chain experience, while creative applications emerge that aim to implement chain abstractions (ChAs) in specific domains.
This is also consistent with the goals of interoperability solutions themselves, as once their base use cases are established, they have two paths for expansion:
Capturing a larger share of the ecosystem (e.g. by integrating more chains/protocols).
Achieve deeper level of chain abstraction integration.
Therefore, as chain abstraction accelerates and interoperability solutions become more prevalent in the Web3 experience, we can only expect the latter to continue to evolve and actively seek to build ChA infrastructure.
in conclusion
While interoperability and chain abstraction solutions are not the same, the two concepts are closely linked. Looking at the big picture, we can see that they represent different stages in the evolution of multi-chain interactions, moving towards the direction of continuous development and growth of the industry.
As chain abstraction solidifies as the next evolutionary step for Web3, interoperability solutions will find new and creative ways to contribute to it, creating a positive flywheel effect.
Ultimately, this can only lead to a truly borderless and frictionless Web3 ecosystem.
