How XION leverages chain abstraction to simplify Web3, starting from the user experience.
Author: shaofaye123, Foresight News
Over 1800 public chains are running in the Web3 world, but real applications are few and far between. As the infrastructure continues to improve, the pursuit of high performance and scalability is no longer the focus of the moment. L1 needs true builders and users, which cannot be achieved without widespread adoption. In the current multi-chain landscape, liquidity is being fragmented, the user entry threshold is high, application deployment and development is difficult, and capital efficiency is low. User experience is still at the usable stage, and large-scale adoption is difficult to occur. This urgently needs a user experience revolution brought about by chain abstraction - we see that the Layer 1 public chain XION is truly simplifying Web3 through protocol-level chain abstraction.
Starting from the user experience
From the perspective of human development, each large-scale adoption of technology is inseparable from a revolution in user experience. The development of user experience determines which stage of the life cycle it is in. Although Web3 is wrapped in the shell of high-tech, the actual level of development is still at the stage of primitive agricultural society. The road to large-scale adoption is still long, and under the rapid technological development, the shortcomings of user experience need to be made up.
Large-scale adoption requires a user experience revolution
The large-scale adoption of Web2 is inseparable from the progress of the underlying infrastructure, but the most important thing is the transition of user experience from "usable" to "easy to use" and then to "good to use". At different stages of development, we can clearly see the shift in the focus of data indicators. From the early 3G and 4G infrastructure era, the focus was on faster information transmission speed and wider information coverage, to the current extreme emphasis on daily active users and retention rate. Under the large-scale adoption of Web2, the industry's focus has shifted from the underlying infrastructure to the application layer, and this is the inevitable path to large-scale adoption.
Currently, the Web3 infrastructure is becoming increasingly mature, but the focus of most public chains is still on underlying indicators such as TPS performance and TVL growth, lacking attention to truly high-value indicators such as user activity and currency velocity. This has led to rapid progress in underlying technology, but very few users who can actually use it. When large-scale adoption occurs, projects first need to shift the focus of construction - from TVL growth to building user activity and currency velocity, which determines when large-scale adoption will occur. How to improve user activity and currency velocity requires a user experience revolution.
Simplification through chain abstraction
For a long time, non-crypto native users have faced a high threshold to enter Web 3: 12/24 English words seed phrase, burning Tokens if the address is misspelled, different Gas on each chain, and assets that cannot be transferred across chains, everywhere are confusing terminology, all of which have become a chasm between Web 2 users and Web 3 applications.
For crypto-native users, the fragmentation of assets, liquidity, and accounts caused by the multi-chain ecosystem has also led to low user activity and currency velocity:
- Asset fragmentation - Different Gas on different chains, high cross-chain bridge costs, and difficulty in interoperability of assets across chains.
- Liquidity fragmentation - The differences in user habits and Token deployment across different chains have led to the isolation of each chain ecosystem.
- Account fragmentation - Difficulty in integrating the same or different user accounts across different chains and wallets.
Chain abstraction proposes solutions to the above problems.
- "Chain abstraction" is usually used to refer to the infrastructure that allows anyone to use decentralized applications without needing to understand the manual steps involved in interacting with their underlying chains (such as bridging assets, managing multiple gas Tokens, balances, etc.). It simplifies the manual processes that users and developers do not necessarily need to interact with each chain, allowing them to focus more on the application itself.
Based on this, XION's definition of chain abstraction focuses more on the overall user experience, not just multi-chain. XION also solves the problems of distribution and fragmentation. If there are no real applications running on these chains, who would care about the connections between chains? XION first provides developers with the foundation to build real applications, and then solves the problem of multi-chain fragmentation, which is a very comprehensive solution.
Looking at the solutions proposed by XION, it not only requires the project to have a deep understanding of blockchain underlying technology, but also requires the team to have strong comprehensive capabilities in product operations, resource reach, and ecosystem cooperation, and XION meets the above points very well.
Overview of XION
Abstraction from account to chain level
Since the concept of chain abstraction was proposed, many projects have approached it from different angles based on their understanding of "chain abstraction". Currently, the products on the market can be divided into three layers - application-level chain abstraction, account-level chain abstraction, and blockchain-level chain abstraction. XION is the only solution that covers all levels. XION not only supports abstract applications built on it, but also realizes universal account abstraction and protocol-level abstraction.
- Application-level chain abstraction aims to provide developer-centric tools and abstract components.
- Account-level chain abstraction aims to provide users with a universal mechanism to interact seamlessly across multiple chains, solving the problem of user-level fragmentation.
- Blockchain-level chain abstraction aims to solve the problem of lack of infrastructure parity between different chains, providing interoperability, and creating a chain abstraction experience while minimizing risk, latency, and cost.
Unlike cross-chain bridges, middleware, and intent protocols, the problems that chain abstraction aims to solve are more specific, and its vision is also more grand. As a representative of account abstraction and blockchain abstraction, XION is a leader in this field.
XION eliminates the complexity of wallets through its powerful abstract account, and provides a composable, user-centric, and future-oriented infrastructure layer by combining its modular design with XION's parameterized fee layer. XION's universal abstract layer establishes user experience as the core goal at the protocol level. Through protocol-level abstract accounts, signatures, fees, and interoperability integration, XION achieves a secure, streamlined, and seamless user experience. It not only simplifies the developer experience, but also creates a user-centric environment. Compared to those chain abstraction solutions that only focus on one aspect and are often associated with multiple chains, XION's approach is more comprehensive and systematic. It significantly lowers the entry threshold for mainstream users to use applications in its ecosystem, while also solving the fragmentation problem.
Strong comprehensive capabilities
In addition, in terms of comprehensive strength, XION also performs extremely well in various aspects.
Team strength. The XION team members are serial entrepreneurs, and its founder Burnt Banksy was involved in the early development of the NFT standard, and gained global media attention after burning a Banksy artwork and minting it as a Non-Fungible Token.
Financing background. XION has completed $36 million in financing, with investors including Multicoin, Circle, Animoca Brands, Hashkey, Spartan, Valor, Morningstar Ventures, Mechanism, Figment, Coinlist Seed, Injective, and Alliance DAO.
Ecosystem expansion. XION is also actively expanding its ecosystem, which currently includes over 200 applications, infrastructure providers, and partners. At the same time, XION is extending its chain abstraction solution to all major ecosystems including Solana, BNB, AVAX, Injective, Saga, Neutron, MultiversX, and Sei.
Product growth. XION also focuses on product promotion and operations. XION has currently created over 3,600,000 meta-accounts, and has more than 200 top-tier deployments, integrations, and partners building on XION. On social platforms, XION has over 1.3 million members (Twitter: 700k+ and Discord: 650k+).
XION's construction
XION has the capability to realize its chain abstraction vision, allowing users to use Web3 products in a "chain abstracted" way, truly simplifying Web3. Just like the internet, users can benefit from Web3 applications without needing to understand blockchain technology.
Demand-driven products
Although the chain abstraction built by XION sounds abstract, the problems it solves are very specific and clear. XION's product design starts from the scenario and is guided by current needs, solving real problems. This scenario-driven product design has matching business scenarios and usage needs.
Scenario use cases - strong demand orientation
XION chain abstraction's satisfaction of user needs
What is the primary need of users in Web 3? - "Transactions".
This answer is undisputable, but the process is extremely cumbersome. When users want to conduct Token transactions on the Base chain, they first need to purchase ETH as Gas at a decentralized exchange, then withdraw the corresponding Token and ETH to the Base address, and then find a Dex to conduct the Token transaction. This simple transaction process is extremely cumbersome, requiring users to understand what Gas is on that chain, record the seed phrases of different wallets, and ensure the transfer address is correct, etc. Not to mention the hassle of cross-chain operations, multiple chain Gas, and incompatible wallets, as well as the numerous Dexes.
But all these can be solved with one click using XION. Through the use of its wallet-less L1 protocol, XION can integrate in multiple aspects such as account abstraction, signature abstraction, and price abstraction, providing users with a seamless interactive experience. Users can log in to XION's applications using common Web 2 login methods (such as email), interact with the applications on their mobile phones, and even start experiencing without the native tokens of the chain, and feel the familiar pricing through stablecoins. XION will help users transfer, convert, and transact assets in the backend. The front-end experience truly achieves invisibility, realizing wallet-less, allowing users to call any asset on any chain without Gas, similar to using WeChat and Alipay for payment abroad without manual foreign exchange.
In terms of transaction security, XION also provides users with the ability to set temporary access keys with time limits, ensuring higher transaction security. Users can define their own transaction limits and conditions. Users can also set multiple verification methods for large transactions, and have the ability to recover account information when certain verification methods are unavailable.
XION chain abstraction's support for product needs
What are the current needs of Web 3 products? - "Fluidity".
Currently, users and products on different chains are in a fixed state, with users preferring to use fixed applications on a fixed chain, usually the largest protocol. This leads to product competition only manifesting in TVL, a false prosperity. Only when user migration costs decrease and capital flows again under interconnected ecosystems can Web 3 products truly usher in a real explosion.
This can be well achieved through XION's chain abstraction. XION, through the aggregation of multiple applications, helps developers reduce user migration costs and break down the capital barriers between chains. Products can be used by users of multiple blockchains. Decentralized autonomous organizations can truly run seamlessly across chains, achieve efficient governance, and allow developers to focus more on the product itself rather than being troubled by which chain to deploy on.
XION chain abstraction's impact on the mass adoption of Web 3
What is the need of Web 3? - "Mass adoption".
Web 3 needs to find incremental markets. Whether it's the improvement in development efficiency through modularization or TON ecosystem's exploration of proximity to the user end, it's all to inject production efficiency into Web 3 on both the development and user ends. XION, through its Generalized Abstraction layer, eliminates the complexity of user-account interaction, transaction fees, and interoperability, significantly lowering the threshold for user participation. The provided cross-chain interaction also provides an example of a sustainable, flexible, and user-centric blockchain infrastructure. With the access of multiple XION use cases such as digital banking, creator platforms, and cross-chain games, it is believed that a new chapter will be ushered in for the mass adoption of Web 3.
Conclusion
The revolution of human mastery and control of tools is a revolution of user experience. In an era of low productivity and backward technology, people's subjective needs had to submit to objective external things. With technological changes, the product design mindset in the industrial age has shifted from the utilitarian "form follows function" to a "user-centric" product mindset, and the transformation of user experience reflects the evolution of the industrial age. Humans have been liberated from machine production. Web3 is still in the transition from "usable" to "easy to use", which requires a user experience revolution starting from the underlying protocols, and XION is the leader of this revolution.
