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Leading Projects in Chain Abstraction

As of 2024, several projects, including NEAR Protocol, Particle Network, and others, are leading the development of chain abstraction technologies. Each of these projects has garnered its own approach to improving the UX of the emerging modular blockchain economy. For example, NEAR Protocol utilizes an “account aggregation” approach to facilitate cross-chain transactions, while Particle Network offers a Cosmos L1 universal settlement layer, enabling developers to create applications that automatically operate seamlessly across various blockchains.

NEAR Protocol

One of the leading projects within chain abstraction, NEAR Protocol, is actively developing various solutions to enhance the overall UX of common blockchains and applications. These solutions include security aggregation, account aggregation, Data Availability layers (DA), intent brokers, decentralized frontends, and super wallet development. By streamlining user and application interactions across various chains, NEAR Protocol enables users to seamlessly engage with platforms like Ethereum, Avalanche, and others using a single NEAR account.

Key Components of NEAR’s Chain Abstraction Efforts

ACCOUNT ABSTRACTION

NEAR Protocol’s account abstraction simplifies user interactions by allowing account creation and recovery using familiar methods such as email addresses. This eliminates the need for users to manage complex wallet interfaces, seed phrases, or private keys. 

Key features include:

• Email-Based Account Creation (FastAuth): NEAR allows users to create accounts using their email addresses, bypassing the need for complex wallet setups and seed phrases. This method utilizes multi-party computation (MPC) to ensure security and ease of access, similar to familiar Web2 authentication methods​​​​​​.
• Multi-Chain Account Management: Users can control accounts across multiple chains from a single NEAR account. This functionality supports signing transactions on various blockchains using the same account, thus eliminating the need for multiple wallet interfaces and easing the user experience​​​​.

NEAR's account aggregation model supports a unified identity for users across multiple blockchains. Users can interact with dApps on different chains through a single account, which automatically handles asset bridging and transaction signing​​​​. Related to this premise are super wallets.

Super wallets simplify user interactions across Web3 networks by eliminating the need for network switching and managing different gas tokens. These wallets streamline the process of engaging with multiple blockchains, significantly enhancing user convenience and efficiency​​.

RELAYERS AND META TRANSACTIONS

NEAR's relayer services enable developers to subsidize gas fees for their users. This means users can interact with dApps without needing to acquire native tokens to pay transaction fees. Meta transactions allow users to send transactions via a relayer, which then attaches the necessary NEAR tokens for execution​​​​​​.

BLOCKCHAIN OPERATING SYSTEM (BOS)

NEAR has also implemented a similar concept to create user-friendly interfaces via its frontend abstraction technology. This is utilized when interacting directly with dApps through NEAR’s Blockchain Operating System (BOS), which provides the following:

• Composable Decentralized Frontend: A framework that integrates easily with Web2 and Web3 backends, allowing developers to build and deploy applications quickly.
• Reusable Components: Developers can use and adapt components similar to LEGO blocks, fostering a collaborative development environment.
• DapDap Gateway: A universal gateway to Ethereum Layer 2 solutions and various dApps, simplifying user navigation across the DeFi landscape​​.

SECURITY AND DATA AVAILABILITY

NEAR utilizes ZK technology to ensure security and data availability across its ecosystem. This approach allows transactions to be verified with minimal trust, ensuring secure and efficient cross-chain interactions​​. Additionally, NEAR's DA layers ensure that all transaction data is recorded in blocks and accessible to all network nodes. This is crucial for maintaining the network's credibility and integrity, especially for Ethereum rollups processing transactions more efficiently by leveraging NEAR's infrastructure​​/.

CHAIN SIGNATURES

Chain signatures enable NEAR accounts, including smart contracts, to execute transactions across different blockchains. This innovation allows users to cover gas fees using the Multichain Gas Relayer (MGR), simplifying the process of acquiring and managing different native tokens for transaction fees across various chains​​​​.

This functionality is accomplished through Multi-Party Computation (MPC). The process involves several key components:

1. MPC-based Key: Upon creation of a NEAR account, the user's private key is generated using MPC, ensuring that the key is never fully stored on any single device or server.
2. Smart Contract Signatures: NEAR Protocol uses smart contracts deployed on target blockchain networks (such as Ethereum and Avalanche) to produce signatures for transactions initiated by the NEAR account. These smart contracts are programmed to accept and validate signatures created by the NEAR account’s MPC-based private key.
3. Indexers and Relayers: Indexers within NEAR Protocol monitor target blockchain networks for signatures generated by the NEAR account's smart contracts. Once a valid signature is detected, relayers submit the transaction to the appropriate blockchain network for execution.
4. Intent Relayers: These components manage cross-chain transactions by converting tokens and gas fees between different blockchain networks. When a user initiates a transaction on a blockchain network other than NEAR, the intent relayer automatically converts the necessary tokens and gas fees from the user's NEAR account balance.

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Across

Across is an innovative cross-chain bridge protocol designed to enable fast and cheap transactions through the integration of an optimistic oracle, bonded relayers, and single-sided liquidity pools. The recent launch of Across V3 marks a significant upgrade, decoupling these layers and opening their interfaces to developers. This version introduces an innovative intent order structure, simplifying the integration of cross-chain capabilities into dApps. By making each module of the intents architecture explicit, developers can now build seamless single-chain dApps that support cross-chain intents, significantly improving user experience.

As the first intents-driven interoperability protocol, Across V3 aims to deliver the sophisticated cross-chain user experience demanded by developers and users in the increasingly complex multichain ecosystem. 

The V3 composable intents engine includes three core components:

• RFQ System for Intent-Based Orders: Facilitates requests for quotes based on specific intents.
• Network of Third-Party Relayers with Off-Chain Liquidity: Ensures liquidity and facilitates transactions.
• Optimistic Verification-Based Settlement Mechanism: Provides a cost-effective way to verify and settle transactions.

This modular setup allows developers to connect to any part of the stack according to their specific requirements.

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When a user wants to transfer assets from chain A to chain B, they deposit the funds into a "deposit box" on chain A, specifying the destination and the fee they are willing to pay. Relayers monitor these deposits and, upon verifying the deposit details, promptly transfer the equivalent funds to the user on chain B. Subsequently, the relayer submits proof of the transfer and the original deposit's validity to the Optimistic Oracle (OO). Once the OO verifies this information, the relayer is reimbursed.

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The Across protocol optimistically assumes the presence of at least one honest disputer to handle disputes. This slower settlement process is less costly than maintaining a network of verification nodes or a dedicated blockchain for rapid verification. The key innovation here is the decoupling of immediate order fulfillment from the complex verification process, with the relayer temporarily fronting the funds.

The Across architecture enhances cost-efficiency by bundling thousands of settlements into a single message, significantly reducing the cost and complexity associated with verifying and settling individual transactions. This aggregation approach streamlines operations and minimizes the on-chain footprint, reducing gas fees and improving overall network efficiency. Historically, discussions surrounding bridge security (read CryptoEQ’s report here) have focused on validator sets within messaging bridges. As intent-based bridges gain traction, it is crucial to broaden the scope of these security discussions to encompass these newer systems.

CAKE Framework

Developed by Frontier Research, the CAKE (Chain Abstraction Key Elements) framework outlines three crucial infrastructure layers (excluding the user-facing application layer) essential for achieving seamless blockchain interactions. In a chain-abstracted world, users can connect their wallets to a dApp’s website, sign transactions, and wait for eventual settlement. All the complexities of acquiring required assets and final settlement are abstracted away and handled by the CAKE's infrastructure layers.

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Permission Layer

The permission layer is the entry point where users connect their wallets to a dApp and request a quote for a user intent, which defines the expected outcome of a transaction. This could be transferring assets or engaging in yield-generating strategies. The wallet must be capable of reading the user’s assets and executing transactions on target chains. Key design decisions in this layer include supporting various signing schemes and transaction payloads to enable multi-chain transactions and minimizing user friction by abstracting the complexity of multiple sub-transactions into single actions.

Solver Layer

The solver layer estimates fees and execution speed based on the user’s initial balance and intent. This layer is crucial in cross-chain settings where transactions are asynchronous, and sub-transactions may fail during execution. The solver layer addresses the cross-chain trilemma involving fees, execution speed, and execution guarantee. By leveraging sophisticated solvers, the system can bring liquidity and execute operations on behalf of the user, enhancing user experience without requiring users to bridge assets themselves.

Settlement Layer

After user approval, the settlement layer ensures transaction execution. It involves bridging the user's assets to the target chain and then executing the transaction. This layer decouples immediate order fulfillment from the complex verification process, relying on relayers to front the funds temporarily. This approach optimizes cost-efficiency by bundling multiple settlements into single messages, significantly reducing gas fees and operational complexity.

Achieving Chain Abstraction

Combining these three layers into a unified product achieves true chain abstraction. Key insights include differentiating between transferring information and transferring value. Information transfer should be lossless and rely on secure pathways to ensure accuracy, while value transfer can be lossy based on user preferences. Sophisticated third parties can be utilized to offer faster, cheaper, or guaranteed value transfers.

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By effectively integrating these layers, Cake Framework aims to provide a streamlined and user-friendly blockchain experience, abstracting away the complexities and allowing users to interact with dApps effortlessly. This holistic approach not only enhances user experience but also sets a new standard for blockchain interoperability and efficiency.

Particle Network

Particle Network’s modular L1 blockchain is built on Cosmos SDK, functioning as a high-performance EVM-compatible execution environment. Like NEAR, Across, and other chain abstraction-focused projects, Particle Network aims to enable an adoptable UX that simplifies account and transaction management into a single UI.

Universal Accounts (UAs)

Particle’s chain abstraction stack begins with the creation of Universal Accounts, which function as ERC-4337 smart accounts attached to a pre-existing EOA (externally owned address). These accounts aggregate token balances across multiple chains into a single address by automatically routing and executing atomic cross-chain transactions. Users can create and manage accounts using traditional crypto wallets or social logins provided by Particle’s Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS).

This accomplishes two key things:

1. Unified Interface: UAs provide a unified interface built on top of existing wallets, allowing users to deposit and use tokens across multiple blockchain environments as if they existed on a single chain.
2. Central Coordination: Particle L1 acts as a coordination and settlement layer for all cross-chain transactions processed through UAs, maintaining a synchronous state across accounts.

Universal Liquidity and Gas

Universal Liquidity is another key component of Particle’s chain abstraction services. This feature automates the execution of user transaction requests, unifying balances across different networks. It eliminates barriers such as the need to purchase native gas tokens or create native wallets for new networks.

• Automatic Liquidity Sourcing: When a user wants to purchase an asset on a blockchain they haven't used before, the necessary liquidity is sourced from their existing balances on different chains and in different tokens.
• Decentralized Messaging Network (DMN): The DMN enables Relayer Nodes to monitor external chain events and settle state events, facilitating cross-chain transfers and maintaining the system’s efficiency.

Closely related is universal gas, Particle’s third pillar of its chain abstraction stack. The Univeral Gas Token allows users to pay gas fees with any token through Particle’s UAs. It works by allowing users to select their preferred gas token, which is routed through Particle’s native Paymaster contract. Gas payments are settled on their respective source and destination chains, with a portion of the fee converted into Particle’s native $PARTI token to be settled on the Particle L1.

Future Outlook

Despite the promising advancements in chain abstraction, security concerns remain paramount, as highlighted by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. The integration of multiple blockchains introduces new security challenges, potentially leading to desensitization toward security issues as systems become increasingly interconnected. Addressing these concerns is crucial as developers continue to push for a more streamlined and accessible blockchain ecosystem. Robust security measures and vigilant monitoring must accompany the technological advancements to ensure the integrity and trustworthiness of these interconnected systems.

Nevertheless, the evolution of blockchain technology through chain abstraction represents a significant step towards making digital assets and blockchain applications more accessible to the general public. This technology simplifies user interactions by abstracting the complexities of multi-chain operations, allowing seamless transactions and interactions across various blockchains. As chain abstraction continues to develop, it holds the potential to fundamentally alter how users interact with digital platforms, making the complex world of blockchain more user-friendly and integrated. The ongoing advancements in this field promise to bring about a new era of digital interaction, where the underlying complexities of blockchain are hidden, offering a smoother, more intuitive user experience.