About Rubic, Educational August 7, 2024

What Is Chain Abstraction & And How It’s Delivering A Seamless Web3 Experience

The world of blockchain can be thrilling, but it can also be intimidating. With a vast array of protocols, each with its own quirks and complexities, navigating the Web3 landscape can feel like juggling chainsaws. This is where chain abstraction steps in, aiming to revolutionize how users interact with dApps and blockchains.

What Is Chain Abstraction?

Imagine a world where you can leverage the power of blockchain technology without needing a PhD in cryptography. Chain abstraction is achieving just that by simplifying the user experience and removing the burden of managing the intricacies of underlying blockchains.

Here’s how chain abstraction works:

User-friendly: Just like you don’t need to know the inner workings of your car engine to drive, chain abstraction shields users from the technical complexities of different blockchains. Users simply interact with the application, oblivious to the blockchain powering it in the background.
Freedom for Developers, Fluidity for Users: By decoupling applications from specific blockchains, developers gain the freedom to leverage the most suitable protocol for their project. This fosters innovation and ensures applications can leverage the strengths of different blockchains. Additionally, chain abstraction facilitates a smoother user experience, eliminating the need to switch between wallets or grapple with blockchain-specific interfaces.
Think Beyond the Silo: Blockchains are often seen as isolated ecosystems. Chain abstraction paves the way for a more interconnected future. By removing barriers between blockchains, it allows for a free flow of liquidity, enabling applications to tap into a wider user base and resource pool.

The Analogy: Just like you seamlessly use various apps on your smartphone without needing to understand the underlying operating system, chain abstraction aspires to create a similar experience across blockchains. You interact with the application, and the blockchain magic happens behind the scenes.

Why Is Chain Abstraction Important?

While chain abstraction is still evolving, it holds immense potential to transform Web3. By simplifying the user experience and fostering innovation, it can usher in a new era of seamless interaction and widespread adoption of blockchain technology.

Examples of Chain Abstraction

Chain abstraction simplifies the complex world of interacting with multiple blockchains by providing a unified interface. Here are some concrete examples:

1. Universal Accounts:

Concept: A single account that can be used across multiple blockchains.
Benefits: Users can manage their assets and identities in one place, without the need to juggle different wallets.
Example: A user can hold ETH on Ethereum, BNB on Binance Smart Chain, and AVAX on Avalanche, all under a single account.

2. Unified Balances:

Concept: A consolidated view of a user’s assets across different chains.
Benefits: Users can see their total holdings without switching between different platforms.
Example: An application displays a user’s total ETH balance, including assets on Ethereum, Linea, Mode and other networks.

3. Cross-Chain Transactions:

Concept: The ability to transfer assets between different blockchains seamlessly.
Benefits: Enables atomic swaps, liquidity aggregation, and decentralized finance applications.
Example: Swapping ETH on Arbitrum for TAIKO without needing to bridge assets manually.

4. Chain Agnostic dApps:

Concept: Decentralized applications that can operate on multiple blockchains without code changes.
Benefits: Increased reach and user base for dApps.
Example: A DeFi lending platform that allows users to borrow and lend assets across Ethereum, Blast, Base and other chains.

5. Gasless Transactions:

Concept: Covering gas fees for users, making transactions more user-friendly.
Benefits: Reduces friction for new users and improves user experience.
Example: A platform that absorbs gas fees when users interact with dApps, making the process smoother.

6. Chain Agnostic Wallets:

Concept: Wallets that can interact with multiple blockchains.
Benefits: Users can manage all their crypto assets in one place.
Example: A wallet that supports Ethereum, Tron, Linea, and other chains.

Real-World Examples:

Rubic: Aiming to Become the Ultimate Chain Abstracted Aggregator (See the Table Below).
Polygon’s AggLayer: Aims to aggregate liquidity and transactions across multiple chains.
Cosmos IBC: Enables inter-blockchain communication and asset transfers.
Connext: Focuses on cross-chain swaps and liquidity.
LayerZero: Provides infrastructure for building omnichain applications.

These examples illustrate how chain abstraction can enhance the user experience and open up new possibilities for blockchain-based applications.

Why Is Chain Abstraction the Next Frontier?

Chain abstraction offers several compelling advantages:

Improved User Experience: By removing technical barriers, chain abstraction simplifies Web3 for everyone. Users can interact with dApps and manage their digital assets more easily.

Increased Adoption: A seamless and interoperable Web3 will attract more users and developers, fueling innovation and accelerating the growth of the decentralized ecosystem.

Enhanced Developer Efficiency: Developers can focus on building innovative dApps instead of grappling with the complexities of specific blockchains.

To help the crypto community achieve this vision of seamless blockchain interaction, Ankit Chiplunkar and Stephane Gosselin from Frontier Research in their insightful article introduced the CAKE Framework. Let’s explore what it is.

What Is The CAKE Framework? How’s It Making Blockchain Easier To Use?

Imagine using the internet without worrying if you’re on Chrome, Firefox, or something else. That’s the idea behind CAKE (Chain Abstraction Key Elements). It hides the complicated inner workings of different blockchains so users can just focus on what they want to do, like sending money or investing.

CAKE works in three layers:

Permission: This layer asks your permission to use your funds and perform actions on different blockchains.
Solver: This layer figures out the best way to complete your request, considering things like fees and speed. It’s like a travel agent for your blockchain transactions!
Settlement: Once you approve, this layer handles the actual transfer and makes sure everything goes smoothly behind the scenes.

Source: Introducing the CAKE framework by Frontier Tech

By working together, these layers aim to make interacting with blockchains as easy and user-friendly as possible. The ultimate goal? A smooth, consistent experience across all blockchains, just like the internet you know today.

How Is Rubic Exploring Chain Abstraction?

At Rubic, we are constantly exploring ways to make the cross-chain experience smoother and more accessible. Chain abstraction aligns perfectly with our vision of a borderless and user-centric Web3 future. We are actively researching and implementing solutions that leverage chain abstraction to empower users and developers alike.

Chain Abstraction Principles and Rubic

Chain Abstraction is a hot but still emerging topic. It mainly stays in the realms of theory, but already started to see some real-life solutions. One of the best articles which summarise various theoretical approaches and emerging solutions is the one by Four Pillars.

It provides a comprehensive framework which demonstrates how Rubic’s design goes well in line with the Chain Abstraction Principles.

Chain Abstraction Principles	Rubic
Gas Abstraction: Users can perform transactions without needing to acquire and manage separate gas tokens for each blockchains.	Gasless transactions are one of the key elements of Rubic’s roadmap. We’ve already implemented a Gas Station where users can easily obtain tokens for gas fees. Soon, we plan to go even further by eliminating the need for users to worry about the right token for gas fees as such.
Asset Management Abstraction: Users can manage and interact with their assets across different blockchain networks through a single interface, without needing to understand the technical details of each network.	Rubic aggregates over 80 blockchains & 220 DEXs and bridges, enhancing the smart router feature to eliminate the need for users to understand the complexities of trading across different blockchains.
Transaction Abstraction: Users can initiate transactions without needing to understand the underlying blockchain protocols, as the system bundles and processes transactions in batches.	Thanks to Rubic’s smart routing feature, users experience transactions as a one-click action, while all the complex processes are seamlessly managed behind the scenes by Rubic.
Token Bridge Abstraction: Users can seamlessly transfer assets across different blockchain networks without needing to understand the technical details of blockchain bridges or wrapped tokens.	Aggregated bridges and DEXs handle all the work for users, whether it’s a cross-chain or on-chain trade.
Multi-Chain Abstraction: Users can interact with smart contracts and applications across multiple blockchain networks through a unified interface, without needing to switch between different wallets or interfaces. This can be done with message bridges, or a solver.	On Rubic, users can seamlessly swap assets to, from, and across EVM, non-EVM, and Layer2 chains, all within a single interface. When swapping to non-EVM chains, for example, one doesn’t need to log in to a non-EVM wallet (like for Bitcoin, Ton, etc.) and simply enter the receiver’s wallet address on a non–EVM chain without needing to log in twice.

Rubic’s Toolkit For Any dApps

Creating a fully chain-abstracted world takes time and collaboration among wallets, applications, data providers, and infrastructure. However, there are significant steps any dApp can take today to greatly enhance user experience.

Building our app, we’re passionate about empowering other dApps to unlock seamless on-chain functionality and cross-chain interoperability, all while adhering to chain abstraction principles.

To assist developers, Rubic is introducing the Crypto Aggregator Best Rate Finder Toolkit: an easy-to-use set of smart contract modules and pre-built UI components that allow you to make your dApp interoperable without the need for a ‘from-scratch’ development process or additional audits.

We aim to make this process as straightforward as possible. Aligned with Rubic’s chain abstraction development direction, our toolkit will evolve into a comprehensive suite, eventually providing any dApp with a chain-abstracted solution in days, or even hours.

How Does the Toolkit Work?

A comprehensive set of SDK, API, and crypto swap Widget lies at the core of Rubic’s solution. The Crypto Aggregator Toolkit allows your users to swap to/from/on the necessary blockchains using 220+ DEXs, bridges and aggregators local to the given chains, without the need to explore underlying intricacies.

Explore our Crypto Aggregator Toolkit – https://tools.rubic.exchange/.

Why Rubic?

There are several compelling reasons to chain abstract your dApp using Rubic:

Security: Rubic leverages battle-tested canonical bridges that already secure each chain, rather than relying on third-party validators.
Flexibility: The Toolkit works with every chain we support now and in the future, and with any asset by tapping into DEXs and aggregators on each chain.
Efficiency & Composability: By integrating at the smart contract level, you retain composability and ensure your users get the best possible pricing for cross-chain transactions.
Monetization: As an integrator, you can monetize your Rubic API, SDK or Widget integration and collect up to 50% of fees.

Enhance your dApp’s user experience with Rubic’s Chain Abstraction Toolkit today!

What’s Next?

Rubic’s on a mission to make crypto swaps seamless! While we’ve got a user-friendly UI, there’s still room to simplify things further. Right now, users need to connect wallets, manage gas tokens, and choose trading pairs. In the future, imagine a Rubic experience where:

Wallets connect automatically.
Gas fees are handled seamlessly.
Swapping is as easy as clicking a button.

We’re already making strides with features like Gas Station and Smart Routing, but that’s just the beginning! Together, let’s unlock the true potential of blockchain technology and shape a Web3 experience that is as intuitive as it is powerful!

FAQ

1. What is the difference between account abstraction and chain abstraction?

Account abstraction focuses on simplifying the user experience of interacting with smart contracts by allowing for more complex transaction logic without requiring users to understand complex programming. It essentially abstracts away the complexities of the account management process.
Chain abstraction focuses on simplifying the user experience of interacting with multiple blockchains by providing a unified interface. It abstracts away the complexities of different blockchain environments, allowing users to interact with multiple chains as if they were a single entity.

2. How does chain abstraction improve blockchain interactions?

Chain abstraction enhances blockchain interactions by:

Simplifying user experience: Users don’t need to understand the intricacies of different blockchains.
Increasing accessibility: More users can participate in the blockchain ecosystem without technical knowledge.
Enabling cross-chain applications: Developers can build applications that seamlessly operate across multiple chains.
Optimizing transaction costs: By routing transactions through the most efficient chain, costs can be reduced.

3. What are the benefits of using Rubic for cross-chain transactions?

Rubic, as a cross-chain protocol or aggregator, offers benefits such as:

Best rates: Aggregating liquidity from multiple sources to find the best exchange rates.
Speed: Efficient cross-chain transfers with minimal delays.
Security: Robust security measures to protect user funds.
Wide range of supported chains: Access to a vast ecosystem of blockchains.
User-friendly interface: Easy-to-use platform for both individuals and developers.

4. How can developers start using chain abstraction in their projects?

To start using chain abstraction in your projects, you can:

Integrate with existing chain abstraction platforms: Utilize platforms that provide pre-built tools and APIs.
Build a custom chain abstraction layer: Develop your own solution for specific requirements.
Leverage blockchain interoperability protocols: Explore protocols like Polkadot, Cosmos, or Avalanche for cross-chain communication.
Understand the core concepts: Learn about concepts like bridges, wrapped assets, and atomic swaps.
Consider security implications: Implement robust security measures to protect user funds and data.