Revisiting “Chain Abstraction”: A New Track Driven by Mature Product Power

Author: Haotian

Yesterday, the news that @ParticleNtwrk received investment from Binance labs triggered heated discussions in the market. I would like to reiterate my viewpoint: "Chain abstraction" will become a hot topic after "modularization". In addition to the enthusiasm of VCs and exchanges, the entire track has 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 injecting productivity into Crypto. "Chain abstraction" is more down-to-earth and is the next stop of "modularization".

2) "Chain abstraction" is also an empty narrative at first glance, 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 needs to select any one of the layers, such as the DA layer, the Execution layer, the interoperability layer, and a differentiated point to outline a grand scene. Chain abstraction obviously cannot do this.

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

3) "Chain abstraction" has a strong input of web2 "mature" product power. Everyone criticized the wallets, chains, and protocols in the past web3 world as "grassroots teams", but with the involvement of mainstream web capital and talents, web2 products, operations, and business systems have gradually penetrated into web3. For a long time, people could not perceive the existence of such products, just because what they did did not look so web3 Native. However, the narrative of "chain abstraction" gave such products an opportunity to rise to the top.

4) In addition to Particle, I will randomly cite several upstream and downstream projects: 1) @ProjectZKM uses ZK technology to build a unified liquidity aggregation and mobilization center, 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 service end; 3) @ApertureFinance and @bentobatch and other dApps that build rich and smooth transaction experiences for users, and there are many front-end experience optimization and even integrated AI Agent applications and service platforms.

From upstream standards such as ERC4337 to service protocols for unified liquidity scheduling layers, and then to applications that have already 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 practical application scenarios and perfect business expectations. (The valuation standards of the secondary market will also be different.

Overall, chain abstraction will continue to be dominated by the narrative of infra > application for a long time in the short term, but the significance of the industry evolution direction and mature product power behind it cannot be underestimated, and it is worth paying attention to treasure hunting in the long term.