We noticed quite a lot of development in what I prefer to name the open net in 2023, regardless of the sluggish marketplace for a lot the 12 months. Zero-knowledge (ZK) tech made main strides, the layer 2 and rollup-driven stack took maintain and new primitives launched capturing loads of consideration.
This submit is a part of CoinDesk’s “Crypto 2024” predictions package deal. Illia Polosukhin is the CEO of the NEAR Basis.
These tendencies all laid the groundwork for what would be the main evolution for Web3 in 2024: chain abstraction.
The crypto trade is shifting into an period of chain abstraction, the place blockchains and different infrastructure will turn into more and more invisible to customers and to an extent builders.
See additionally: The Barrier to Mainstream Crypto Adoption Is not UX | Opinion
Builders care about distribution, entry to customers and liquidity and velocity to launch –– in addition to the safety and reliability of the infra they’re utilizing. Finally, most end-users — no less than these utilizing purposes with mainstream potential — don’t care concerning the infrastructure an app is constructed on.
Customers simply need to get worth and nice experiences, shortly, simply and ideally totally free. Hardly anybody thinks about or cares whether or not a webpage is working on Google, Amazon or one thing else, we simply need it to work.
Zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) introduces a principally new method to ledger safety. As an alternative of needing to belief a decentralized set of validators, now by way of developments in ZK cryptography even a single laptop can show that guidelines have been adopted with a easy proof.
This implies the distinction between constructing on a shared chain with billions of {dollars} securing it (or spending immense sources to launch a brand new one), and spinning up a single server. In different phrases, safety doesn’t should be the deciding issue for builders when they’re selecting infra — by way of latest developments, transactions and worth from one chain can choose one other (with some technical caveats).
This more and more unified safety throughout networks has main implications for app builders as a result of it adjustments the set of choices they’re making after they determine the place to construct. For those who can show what you’ve achieved with a ZK proof, it issues much less the place you’ve constructed it. Unifying safety additionally means the flexibility to faucet into liquidity from any community, at any layer.
For customers and builders alike, the defragmenting of liquidity and safety will result in extra flexibility. Equally, eradicating the burden of those decisions from customers lets the open net begin to really feel extra like as we speak’s web, a single platform expertise the place you possibly can simply transfer from app to app with out managing dozens of wallets and accounts.
The opposite main key to smoothing out consumer expertise is account aggregation, or eradicating the necessity to handle accounts for each L1 and L2, that are more and more turning into silos for apps and communities. NEAR, for example, is engaged on multichain, non-custodial accounts that may allow cross-chain transactions.
Builders basically have to hold the thought of account. abstraction in thoughts, in an effort to ship a unified expertise throughout all Web3 apps.
See additionally: Ethereum Improve May Make It More durable to Lose All Your Crypto
Mixed with decentralized frontends, which give builders a brand new programmable atmosphere for constructing apps that span throughout blockchains and hold the blockchain particulars hidden away from customers, this can be a highly effective new paradigm to unlock a brand new period of smoother consumer experiences higher than what’s accessible on Web2.
NEAR will not be alone in believing {that a} unified, cross-chain ecosystem is feasible. We’re additionally partnering with Eigen Labs on a quick finality layer for Ethereum rollups, collaborating with Polygon on a zkWASM prover and different initiatives. We see clearly that adoption of the “open net” begins with customers’ entry factors to Web3.
Chain abstraction means the tip of maximalism. After all know-how issues and many people in Web3 care concerning the many inventions and decisions that distinguish our completely different approaches. However most individuals care about experiences and merchandise, not infrastructure.
As crypto marches in direction of the mainstream, there might be a number of blockchains, rollups and completely different infrastructure suppliers working any quantity and sort of purposes — however, hopefully, customers will not should handle and even know concerning the technical layers.
The open net might be a greater net, so let’s give attention to delivering higher experiences to customers relatively than cult pondering round a selected blockchain.
