You may also like:
NFTs appeal to a broad consumer base across art, gaming, collectibles, and mission-driven communities, extending beyond crypto’s core of finance and technology. We’ve seen the speculative NFT bubble pop in recent years, but that doesn’t mean we should count NFTs out.
Historically, NFTs were seen as leveraged bets on the chain’s culture and social layer. People would hoard NFTs in vaults and rarely they ever move across chains - except for DeGods.
But times have changed and NFTs are now valued based on their utility. We've also moved past the ETH-centric worldview into a multichain reality. NFT activity has spread to Bitcoin, Solana, Polygon, and L2s like Base, Blast, and Zora. The rise of app-specific gaming chains and L3s has further fragmented the market.
The current experience is like shopping at different stores for each item on your list. To appeal to the masses, we want to offer an Amazon-like experience—buy any NFT, on any chain, with any token.
That’s why today, we make the case: Blur needs Chain Abstraction!
Chain Abstraction, a new buzzword?
Before we dive in, let’s clear up what Chain Abstraction is and why we need it.
Chain Abstraction is about abstracting the technology's complexity to offer a simplified way to use crypto. It's about creating a Chain free Web3.
Users shouldn’t have to worry about passphrase & wallet management, gas tokens, MEV, bridging, or switching networks/RPC. They need an experience as seamless as Binance, but non-custodial and secure.
The World We Want - Monkey Sees Action, Monkey Apes
The World We Have -
What can be, unburdened by what has been
Blur is one of the leading NFT marketplaces and aggregators. It's a consumer-facing app that could be key to onboarding new users into crypto.
Integrating a chain abstraction framework can 10x the user experience, boost capital efficiency, and enhance security. It’s time to discuss what the future of crypto UX will look like:
1. Mass Adoption (Real)
According to Token Terminal, fewer than five dapps have over 100K Daily Active Wallets, and the actual user numbers are likely even lower. Crypto needs users, and the key to onboarding them is to offer a Web2-like experience: one account with a unified balance and one-click transactions.
We can do this with Intents. Users simply specify their desired results, and third-party solvers fulfill the requests. This approach abstracts away the complexities of gas, bridging, finding routes, and switching networks.
If you want to buy a Pudgy, just go to the app and click buy. The solver will accept your BTC, ETH, SOL, or any other token and provide you with the Pudgy.
2. Multichain - users are not having a Blast
Blur is deployed on Blast L2 and Ethereum, but there is no interoperability between the two. A User can’t buy a Blast NFT using USDC on Ethereum. The user is required to:
- Swap USDC for ETH
- Bridge to Blast L2
- Acquire ETH for gas
- Deposit ETH on Blast Blur
A user on Solana would have to jump through several more hoops to buy a Blast NFT.
The UX we should aim for:
- Buy any NFT, on any Chain, with any Token
This restricts Blast L2 from capitalizing on its core Ethereum user base. They are forced to build an entirely new ecosystem and offer incentives to migrate users to their chain.
A chain abstraction solution would provide seamless interoperability between the two chains, allowing users to access a wider range of offerings and enhancing the overall user experience.
3. Chain-ed: Limitations of multichain
Let’s expand on the previous point and understand how your apps can extend to different chains and challenge incumbents.
The current NFT infrastructure limits the flow of value and users across ecosystems. Since each NFT marketplace is a different instance, all apps start from scratch on any new chain. Early movers on those chains have already built their user bases and liquidity, which is why different marketplaces thrive on different networks.
Blur is only on two networks, while most of their core features are only available on Ethereum. With OneBalance API integration, they could connect all chains with just one integration that leverages their massive user base and liquidity.
Integrate OneBalance to become Chain Free
4. Appchains fragment UX, Chain Abstraction fixes this
Blur has been working on vertical integration to create a seamless experience for its users, similar to what Uniswap and Unichain are doing. These projects are building from the wallet to the app to the chain level to offer a simplified UX.
While building your own appchain has advantages, it fragments liquidity and complicates the user experience. An appchain won’t replace the Ethereum deployment, and interoperability will remain cumbersome.
Appchains don’t solve your UX issues—you need chain abstraction for that.
5. Ditch slow - Execute trades faster
Blur prides itself on being the fastest NFT marketplace on Ethereum. However, a multi-chain transaction typically takes 15-20 minutes.
This latency makes it almost certain that your NFT will be sniped, forcing you to pay extra to acquire it. You could even lose out to manual transactions, failing to secure your forever NFT.
OneBalance’s resource locks enable near-instant cross-chain transactions. With resource locks, solvers don’t have to wait for finality on the source chain, allowing cross-chain transactions from Ethereum or even Bitcoin to go through in seconds.
6. Security: Built for Bored Apes
One of the biggest challenges in crypto has been the prevalence of hacks and scams. If we want to appeal to the masses, we need a simple way to secure assets.
EOAs are controlled by passphrases, which can be easily lost or hacked. Additionally, users are vulnerable to phishing scams, where a single signature can cost millions.
OneBalance accounts offer Passkey signups and Permissions. Passkey provides strong security guarantees while being much easier for new users to understand. Permissions allow users to set specific rules for accessing their assets—like locking a Bored Ape until certain conditions are met. You can also add extra security measures to further protect your account!
7. Beyond UX
Blur has focused on capital efficiency and popularizing NFT market making. However, cross-chains are not efficient as they require market makers to have separate inventory and setups for each chain.
A chain abstraction solution allows market makers to operate across different markets without the need to integrate each new chain. This boosts volume and capital efficiency across all chains.
Imagine this: you deposit ETH into a Blur pool on mainnet and trade NFTs across any chain.
Conclusion:
In this article, we discussed how the world looks like when consumer apps adopt Chain Abstraction. It offers advantages to new users, crypto natives, and the market itself!
Composability is the killer feature of crypto, but we have somehow ended up with silos. It’s time to connect all chains offer a unified experience and usher into a new age of crypto UX - Monolithic -> Modular -> Abstracted.
