Latest statistics from credible sources peg the global crypto population at 400 million users worldwide. The Crypto industry without a doubt has enjoyed impressive global adoption over the years but 400 million is still meager compared to the global population. 400 million users means that the number of crypto enthusiasts, traders, and everyday users in the world is still less than 6% of the 8 billion people in our world today.
These simple statistics reveal that despite the noise around cryptocurrency and its growing adoption around the world, the crypto industry still has a very long way to go in onboarding new users and becoming a truly global phenomenon as touted.
The crypto industry despite its tremendous potential and innate ability to change how humans perceive and interact with money still has a major challenge to contend with. The challenge plaguing the industry remains its high barrier to entry for the everyday human who is not technically inclined or interested in technical ideas.
The Cryptocurrency industry remains a semi-geek party dominated by technically inclined individuals who unfortunately are not the biggest demographic in the world.
This prevents a huge percentage of the world population from truly harnessing the power of decentralization and blockchain and putting them to use in their everyday lives.
The challenge facing the Crypto industry remains lowering the entry barrier and making the industry appealing to the masses by toning down the technical aspect of crypto and improving on its user experience.
This is where the concept of Chain Abstraction comes in.
What is Chain Abstraction?
Chain abstraction is simply all about improving the user experience of blockchain technology by masking the technical aspects of it.
Hence Chain abstraction is more about User experience and less about blockchain technology.
At the core of user experience in blockchain technology is interoperability.
A bulk of what Chain abstraction aims to do is to simplify the blockchain experience by creating an abstraction layer over various blockchain protocols hence tackling the problem of fragmentation in the blockchain industry.
This abstract layer makes it possible and easier to deal with the various existing blockchain protocols under one interface simplifying the process for both everyday users and developers.
Chain abstraction aims to drive the onboarding of the masses into blockchain technology by taking away the need to understand technical ideas as a prerequisite to using blockchain technology.
The concept is based on the premise that ordinary everyday people don’t need to understand how blockchain works to be able to use it in their everyday lives.
Note that masking the technical aspect of Blockchain technology does not mean replacing them or altering them. It just means making blockchain accessible and simple to use by people who don’t understand the technical aspects of blockchain technology.
Key Goals of Chain Abstraction
The goals of chain abstraction as a concept can be divided into three main goals.
- Simplification: Chain abstraction hopes to simplify the blockchain experience by masking its technical complexities hence making it appealing and user-friendly for both developers and everyday users.
- Interoperability: Driving a seamless interaction and transaction between existing blockchain networks
- Adaptability: Providing developers the privilege to create different applications without being stuck on one blockchain network.
Benefits of Chain Abstraction as a concept
When chain abstraction is sufficiently achieved in the blockchain industry, here are some benefits we can look forward to from that feat.
- Wider global crypto adoption: An improved user experience of blockchain technology via the masking of its technical complexities would attract people who are not technically inclined to the technology thereby driving a wider global adoption
- Better Interoperability: Chain abstraction would improve the relationship existing between different blockchain networks boosting communication, cohesion, and functionality in the blockchain industry.
- More innovations: This last point is a factor of the second point. Better interoperability in the blockchain industry reduces complexity for developers who will leverage that to build more products.
Important Chain Abstraction Projects to Follow
The chain abstraction concept and dream cannot materialize without the necessary infrastructure for it. Chain abstraction infrastructure projects are spearheading the concept by providing practical solutions to the core challenge chain abstraction hopes to solve.
We are now going to highlight some important chain abstraction projects to follow in the industry.
Layer Zero
Layer Zero is an open-source messaging protocol that allows for the development of truly cross-chain applications that use Layer Zero tech for their network communication tasks. The platform works for various Blockchain networks and so many applications are been built on it at the moment.
Hyper Lane
Hyper Lane is quite similar to Layer Zero and is a strong driver of interoperability.
Any developer can deploy Hyperlane to any blockchain environment they wish, and it can in return communicate with every other chain that has HyperLane deployed in it.
The project has its own customizable interchain security module which offers developers various options for security configuration based on their specifications.
Axelar
Axelar is another chain abstraction project heavy on interoperability. Its interoperability feature is programmable and it provides the underlying infrastructure needed to create any multichain application you can dream of in a very short time.
Conclusion
Chain abstraction is an important concept in the blockchain industry because it holds the key to unlocking more global adoption of cryptocurrency elevating blockchain technology from a near-fringe idea used by a selected few to an everyday phenomenon leveraged by the global masses.