Author: Alex Nardi Source: Shoal Research Translation: Shan Oppa, Golden Finance

Introduction

If the future of finance is digital, why does using DeFi still feel like dialing up in the 1990s? The dream of a seamless, blockchain-powered financial system is often disrupted by reality—switching wallets, bridging assets, handling gas fees, and ensuring cross-chain compatibility. Users face friction at every step, developers are forced to optimize for isolated ecosystems, and capital is still scattered across multiple chains, thus reducing overall efficiency. The prospects for Web3 remain, but its usability issues prevent it from truly achieving mainstream adoption.

This is where chain abstraction works. Just as cloud computing abstracts the complexity of managing physical servers, chain abstraction eliminates the biggest user experience barriers of blockchain, ensuring seamless interaction between chains without the need for user management to be managed at the underlying complexity. Just as streaming services like Netflix don’t require users to know which cloud provider they run on, future Web3 applications will not require users to choose a network or manually bridge assets.

This transformation has far-reaching impact. A fully implemented chain abstraction model will shift the focus from infrastructure-centered blockchain competition to application-centered user experience. Capital efficiency will be improved, development barriers will be reduced, and decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming and digital identity solutions will receive huge availability improvements.

This report explores how chain abstraction can reshape users and developers’ interactions with Web3, covering the core technological advancements that make it possible, the indirect impact of the industry, real-world implementations—including the core role of Particle Network—and the challenges that may be faced in the future.

The core concept of chain abstraction

The basic goal of chain abstraction is to eliminate users and developers' attention to blockchain. Chain abstraction simplifies blockchain interaction by creating a unified layer, making it seamless, without requiring users to deal with wallet fragmentation, gas fees for multiple tokens, and liquidity silos. Below, we will analyze the key components that realize this vision.

1. General account: single balance across chains

In the current Web3 ecosystem, users usually need to provide a separate account for each chain—Ethereum accounts for ERC-20 tokens, Solana accounts for SPL tokens, Bitcoin accounts for BTC, and so on. This fragmented experience allows users to track multiple balances, manage various private keys, and remember where the assets are stored.

Universal accounts solve this problem by providing a common address and balance across chains. Users can trade on different blockchains with just one login, without switching networks or manually transferring funds.

Particle several months ago Network released UniversalX—the first chain-independent on-chain trading platform—signs the first mainnet implementation of a universal account.

As you can see, although funds are stored across multiple chains, the magic of common accounts is that they appear to be a unified balance. When trading, the system automatically aggregates all the assets on the chain into a transaction—no manual bridges or management of gas fees.

How it works: Universal accounts are powered by ERC-4337-based smart wallets that make on-chain accounts work like programmable smart contracts. These wallets abstract private key management, making multi-chain interactions seamless.

Instance Operation: Imagine Alice, a regular DeFi user. She has ETH on Ethereum but wants to do profit farming on Avalanche. She does not have to manually bridge, pay AVAX gas fees and sign multiple approvals, but only interact with a unified interface that optimizes routing her assets without requiring her to understand the underlying mechanism.

2) General liquidity: Eliminate the need for bridging

Currently One of the biggest obstacles Web3 faces is liquidity fragmentation. Each blockchain operates its own independent asset pool, and if users want to interact with different ecosystems, they need to bridge manually.

Universal liquidity enables seamless asset flow without manual bridging.

WorksTheoretically: General liquidity does not require users to hold multiple assets on different chains, but instead bundle cross-chain capital into a shared liquidity pool, which applications can automatically utilize. Think of it as automation of the bridging process – automatically transferring funds/liquidity from multiple original chains to meet the conditions of the target transaction (e.g. buying NFTs on Avalanche while holding assets on Base and Polygon).

Practical example:

Bob wants to buy NFTs listed on Solana, but all his funds are on Ethereum and Base.

The universal liquidity solution eliminates complexity by eliminating ETH manually bridges to Solana.

Projects such as Particle Network achieve this through Bunder nodes and liquidity provider systems (as shown in the picture above), ensuring optimal execution without user intervention.

3) General Gas: One of the most common problems in any token, any chain

Web3 is gas fees—not only its high cost, but also complex to manage. Today, if users want to interact with a DeFi app on Polygon, they must first purchase MATIC to pay the gas fee, even if they already have USDC or ETH.

Universal Gas solves this problem by allowing payment transactions with any tokens.

How it works:

The middleware layer (such as Particle Network's Paymaster) converts gas payments on behalf of the user, allowing transactions to be executed using any assets held by the user.

This eliminates the need to obtain gas tokens for a specific chain and greatly improves the user experience.

Practical example: The user will add theUSDC is redeemed to SOL, but only USDC. They don't have to be forced to get SOL with gas, just approve the transaction, and gas will be deducted from their USDC balance.

4) Intent-based transactions: The future of execution The heart of the chain abstraction is the transition to intent-based transactions—users define the result they want, and then solvers compete to execute transactions in the most efficient way.

How it works: Instead of submitting a fixed transaction order (e.g., “redeem 1 ETH to 2000 USDC on Uniswap”), users submit advanced intent (e.g., “I want to redeem 1 ETH to USDC at the best price”). The solver network finds the best route and executes transactions without user management details.

Why this is important:

Reduce transaction failures (users do not have to manually set slippage).

Optimized execution (solver competes for the best execution route across chains).

Eliminate network handover (transactions can seamlessly cross multiple links).

Practical example: Vitalik wants to redeem ETH as SOL, but instead of manually selecting the best DEX, you find the best path based on the intent system (e.g., redeem ETH as USDC on Ethereum, bridge to Solana, and convert to SOL—all in a seamless transaction).

In encryption, intent and chain abstractions are often used interchangeably or in overlapping environments, but they are used differently.

Intent is a specification of what the user wants to achieve, without considering how to achieve it. For example, the user can declare "for 5 ETH for BTC". Intent is focused on the results, leaving the implementation to intermediaries such as solvers or fillers.

Chain Abstraction (ChA) on the other hand focuses on hiding the complexity of interacting with multiple blockchains and improving the overall experience for users and developers. It ensures that users and developers do not have to deal with complexities such as bridging assets, managing gas fees, or accessing decentralized liquidity pools, etc.detail.

When intentions are intended to span multiple chains, they begin to perform complexity similar to chain abstraction through abstraction execution. For example, the user's intention to exchange tokens between two chains involves interoperability—the cornerstone of chain abstraction. This is where the two concepts overlap, intending to be the cornerstone of a comprehensive chain abstract solution.

Both intent and chain abstraction play a role in promoting a smoother multi-chain experience, but their implementation is divided into two categories: coordinated solutions and integrated solutions.

A "intention"-centric system looks very promising in user experience (UX), but it faces some key challenges that must be addressed to achieve its full potential, such as dependence on centralized servers and solvers, gas and memory pool restrictions, lack of gas-free transactions, and scalability bottlenecks.

The transformation of chain abstraction influences

The evolution of blockchain has been constrained by its user experience (UX) problems. While early adopters have been able to cope with the complexity of multiple wallets, bridging and gas fees, the next wave of Web3 users will ask for a seamless experience similar to Web2 applications. Frictions in managing blockchain infrastructure remain a major barrier to adoption. Chain abstraction is not only a gradual improvement, but a fundamental paradigm shift that will affect users, developers, financial institutions, gaming ecosystems, and even venture capital markets. By eliminating blockchain silos and achieving seamless cross-chain interactions, chain abstraction has the potential to reshape various industries, making blockchain technology “invisible” to users while maintaining its decentralized benefits.

User: Frictionless Web3 experience

For ordinary users, using blockchain-based applications is still a tedious process. Simple cross-chain transactions on a decentralized exchange (DEX) require switching networks, manually approving transactions, paying gas fees in different tokens, and often connecting assets across incompatible ecosystems. These complexities drive users away, forcing them to rely on centralized solutions that provide a smoother experience. Chain abstraction eliminates these barriers, allowing users to focus on the functionality of the application rather than the mechanisms of the blockchain infrastructure.

One ​​of the most direct benefits of chain abstraction is the integration of the wallet experience. Instead of setting up wallets for Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Bitcoin, users can interact with all networks through a common account. This meansPeople can hold ETH, SOL, AVAX, and BTC in one wallet interface without managing separate key pairs or manually switching networks. Particle Network’s universal account is a prime example of this innovation, which utilizes the ERC-4337 smart contract wallet to provide a unified cross-chain experience.

Another game-changer is the seamless flow of assets without network switching. Traditionally, users who want to redeem USDC from Ethereum to SOL on Solana need to go through a multi-step process: bridge the USDC to Solana, wait for confirmation, and then perform the exchange on the Solana-based DEX. Using chain abstraction, these steps are done entirely in the background. The system determines the optimal execution path and completes the exchange in one interaction, thereby optimizing speed, cost and efficiency. Solutions such as LI.FI's cross-chain liquidity routing and LayerZero's messaging layer are already working to create more seamless cross-chain interactions that chain abstraction protocols can leverage to abstract bridges and provide users with a seamless experience without worrying about manual bridging.

Another major friction point is the Gas fee, which is also abstracted by a universal Gas solution. Today, users who want to interact with the Arbitrum-based NFT marketplace must first obtain ETH to pay the Gas fee, even if they already have stablecoins or other assets. Chain abstraction eliminates this requirement and allows the use of any token, any chain to pay Gas fees. Particle Network’s universal Gas Paymaster enables users to pay Gas fees using any assets they hold, making blockchain interactions as seamless as credit card transactions.

By abstracting the complexity of blockchain, Web3 applications will ultimately provide an experience comparable to the Web2 platform. This shift is crucial for mainstream adoption, and users want financial applications, social platforms and gaming experiences to run without the technical burden of blockchain mechanisms. Imagine a Web2 social media platform that integrates encrypted tips, where users can send payments over a chain without seeing a "bridged transaction." Chain abstraction not only makes this possible, but it is inevitable.

Developer: "Eat less glass"

The complexity of blockchain development has long been an obstacle to widespread innovation. Traditionally, developers have to decide on which blockchain ecosystem to build on, which requires them to customize their applications based on the specific architecture, tools, and constraints of that networkprogram. If they later decide that they want users from different chains to access their application and take advantage of liquidity, they need to deploy it again on those chains. This means that projects launched on Ethereum cannot simply scale to Solana or Avalanche unless there is a lot of additional development work, which forces the team to maintain separate code bases and browse different smart contract languages, consensus mechanisms, and execution environments. Chain abstraction eliminates these limitations, allowing developers to build and deploy in one place at a time while introducing users from any ecosystem (even if users have funds on other chains) without having to redeploy their applications elsewhere, fundamentally changing the way applications interact with blockchain infrastructure.

Particle Network's modular execution layer facilitates this approach by automating cross-chain function calls. For example, a lending protocol launched on Ethereum can automatically enable the lending and lending capabilities between Optimism, zkSync, and Arbitrum without implementing it separately.

Liquidity fragmentation has historically forced DeFi projects to launch on multiple blockchains to attract users. Today, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap must deploy independent liquidity pools on Ethereum, Polygon and Base – all of which run in silos, resulting in inefficiency and price differences. Chain abstraction eliminates this problem by aggregating liquidity across all chains, ensuring that users are always best executed, no matter where the transaction comes from. LI.FI's liquidity aggregation protocol and Socket's modular order flow auction (MOFA) are already working to unify liquidity in the ecosystem, ensuring developers can provide a deeper and more efficient market without manually deploying to multiple networks.

For developers new to Web3, wallet integration and smart contract deployment have historically been steep learning curves, requiring understanding of chain-specific architectures, gas optimization, and security best practices. Chain abstraction reduces these barriers by providing developer tools to abstractly manage the complexity of different blockchain environments.

In addition, account abstraction significantly enhances the developer experience by eliminating the limitations of traditional externally owned accounts (EOA). With the ERC-4337 smart wallet, applications can provide programmable, policy-based execution, enabling use cases such as social login, subscription-based payments, and automatic transaction execution. This means that developers who build subscription-based NFT membership services can allow users to use whatever they holdWhich tokens pay gas, while also setting up recurring payments – these features are not possible with today's standard EOA wallets.

The industry is quickly accepting smart accounts as a new standard for user-friendly programmable wallets. With account abstraction becoming more popular, key developments are accelerating this shift. One of the most exciting versions is Ethereum’s upcoming upgrade EIP-7702, which will be launched on Holesky and Sepolia in the coming weeks as part of the Pectra hard fork. This upgrade marks a critical moment for Ethereum to move towards account abstraction, and this breakthrough aims to make the on-chain experience smoother, smarter and more convenient. Specifically, EIP-7702 enables externally owned accounts (EOA) to use the smart contract account feature.

The existing AA standard ERC-4337 has a limitation: it requires creating a new wallet because it is not backward compatible with EOA.

EIP-7702 is designed to supplement ERC-4337 to make account abstraction more accessible to users. It removes this limitation without further changes to the consensus logic of EVM:

Use an existing wallet.

No new account or migration is required.

Fine fits perfectly with ERC-4337's infrastructure.

Existing EOAs simply delegate smart contract logic through delegate indicators.

The convergence of universal smart contract execution, aggregate liquidity and wallet abstraction means developers can focus on building great applications rather than dealing with blockchain-specific restrictions. A new wave of applications will emerge, and developers no longer need to decide whether to build on Ethereum or Solana - they just need to build for the entire Web3.

DeFi and Financial Markets: Unleashing Capital Efficiency

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has revolutionized the global financial markets by enabling permissionless borrowing, transactions and income generation. However, cross-chain liquidity dispersion remains a major bottleneck, forcing users and protocols to dominate, reducing capital efficiency and leading to inconsistent pricing across networks. Chain abstraction through aggregation across ecosystemsLiquidity, enabling seamless cross-chain transactions, and optimizing capital flows in previously impossible ways directly solve these inefficiencies.

One ​​of the biggest obstacles DeFi faces today is that liquidity is isolated on different chains, resulting in market fragmentation. Lending and lending protocols like Aave currently require the deployment of separate instances on Ethereum, Avalanche, and Polygon, each with an independent liquidity pool. This splitting forces users to manually bridge assets to acquire lending opportunities on different networks, which adds complexity and risk. Particle Network’s universal liquidity layer eliminates this problem by allowing users to borrow from lenders on multiple chains without manually transferring funds. Borrowers are no longer limited to the liquidity of a single chain, but can use cross-chain lending pools to seamlessly handle execution in the backend.

Similarly, cross-chain trading remains one of the most frustrating experiences for users, as decentralized exchanges (DEXs) still operate in silos. Today, if traders want to convert ETH on Ethereum to SOL on Solana, they need to use a centralized exchange (CEX) like Binance, or manually bridge their assets through a third-party protocol, resulting in fees and delays. Chain abstraction eliminates this friction by allowing DEX to aggregate liquidity across all chains, meaning that users can trade assets locally without switching networks. LI.FI, Connext, and Across Protocol are already working in the backend to route cross-chain transactions, ensuring that users can achieve the best execution without interacting with the bridge.

In addition to trading and lending, return optimization is another major pain point in chain abstraction. Today, earnings aggregators like Yearn Finance or Beefy Finance must maintain a separate strategy for each blockchain, and users need to manually transfer funds to chase the best returns. With intent-based transactions and automated execution, DeFi users can deposit assets once, and the solver will automatically route them to the most profitable opportunity across chains. Particle Network’s universal income aggregation model is designed to achieve this goal, allowing users to earn profits without managing chain-specific deployments or bridge assets.

Another challenge with DeFi is that gas fees create unpredictable cost structures, making transactions expensive and sometimes unprofitable. When using any assets on the chain, assuming you want to send ERC-20 token $X from Ethereum, you must be in the local currency of that chain (in this case ETH)Pay gas. Many users give up on transactions because they may not have any liquid local token tokens to pay for gas. The universal Gas Paymaster solution eliminates this complexity by allowing users to pay transaction fees in any token, making DeFi interactions more seamless. This is especially important for institutional players who require cost predictability before putting large amounts of money into on-chain strategies. Universal Gas Paymaster is also useful for planning to implement gas-free transactions to support user-acquisitioned networks or dApps. This concept called "sponsored transaction fees" shown in the figure below is a reliable way to support user growth by lowering the threshold and conversion costs for potential users.

chain abstraction not only improves the DeFi experience of individual users, but also makes decentralized finance more attractive to institutions. Due to the operational complexity of managing assets across multiple chains, many hedge funds, asset management companies and corporate finance departments have been reluctant to allocate funds to DeFi. With chain abstraction, institutions can interact with DeFi through a unified execution layer, reducing onboarding friction and ensuring liquidity is always deployed in the optimal way.

By eliminating liquidity fragmentation, optimizing transaction execution, and realizing cross-chain lending and income strategies, chain abstraction fundamentally improves the capital efficiency of DeFi. This shift ensures that DeFi can compete with traditional financial markets in terms of liquidity depth, execution speed and user experience, opening a new era of frictionless, interoperable financial markets.

Game and Web3 Experience: Multi-chain Metaverse

From the early online multiplayer games to the rise of e-sports and the virtual economy, the gaming industry has been at the forefront of technological innovation. However, due to network isolation, blockchain games have not yet reached their full potential, with assets, currencies and economies in the game being trapped in specific chains. This lack of interoperability forces players to use complex bridging mechanisms, hindering mainstream adoption. Chain abstraction provides a solution that supports a seamless multi-chain gaming experience, allowing players to interact with blockchain-based assets without having to worry about the underlying network.

One ​​of the main limitations of today's Web3 games is that in-game assets (such as NFTs and tokens) are limited to a single chain. If players get an NFT skin in a Solana-based RPG, they can’t easily transfer or sell it in an Ethereum-based market unless they go through multiple bridging steps. This limits the liquidity and practicality of digital assets in different ecosystems. PartIcle Network’s universal account and cross-chain liquidity layer solves this problem by ensuring NFTs and tokens can be accessed across multiple chains without manual transfer, effectively turning the blockchain infrastructure into an invisible backend layer. This will allow players to use NFT avatars obtained on Immutable X in games hosted on Polygon without manually migrating assets.

Fuel charges and transaction approvals are another major friction point in blockchain games. Traditional gamers are accustomed to instant transactions and seamless in-game purchases, while blockchain games usually require multiple wallet approvals, network switching and fuel fee payments to perform simple operations.

Although most of the restrictions related to transaction approval have been resolved by account abstraction, the chain abstraction protocol is being built on this feature and adds more advantages to provide users with a unified and seamless experience.

With the universal gas solution, gamers will no longer need to hold a chain of native tokens to pay for transaction fees. For example, players can use USDC to purchase in-game weapons in the Arbitrum-based NFT marketplace without paying gas fees with ETH. This level of abstraction reflects the one-click buying experience of traditional online stores, making blockchain games more attractive to mainstream users.

Interoperability is also key for game studios that want to build multi-chain experiences. Today, game developers must choose a blockchain to build, locking their user base into that ecosystem. This limits growth potential and forces developers to either maintain multiple versions of the game on different chains or rely on complex bridging solutions. Chain abstraction allows game studios to develop chain-independent games, meaning players on Ethereum, Solana, or Avalanche can interact frictionlessly in the same gaming economy. UniversalX and LayerZero’s messaging layers are already exploring solutions that allow game assets and currencies to flow freely between different blockchain ecosystems, enabling a true multichain meta-universe.

The impact of chain abstraction on Web3 games is not limited to asset transfers, it also enhances player ownership and monetization models. In traditional games, digital assets are locked in centralized servers, and players do not have real ownership of in-game items. Blockchain games introduce players-owned economies, with assetsis verifiable and tradable. However, without chain abstraction, these assets will remain in the original ecosystem, limiting their long-term value. By ensuring cross-chain compatibility for in-game economies, chain abstraction allows players to bring assets wherever they want, strengthening the idea of ​​true ownership in the digital space.

The future of Web3 games depends on eliminating friction and providing an experience comparable to traditional gaming platforms. Players should be able to log in, trade and play games without considering blockchain, gas fees or network switches. Chain abstraction ensures that blockchain is invisible to the end user, allowing game developers to focus on storytelling, gameplay and community building rather than blockchain infrastructure. Through abstract complexity, Web3 games can rival traditional AAA games, opening the door to mainstream adoption and opening a new era of player-driven economy.

Visit Investment: Reduce infrastructure spending and increase consumers dApp

Web3 ecosystem has witnessed the influx of venture capital (VC) funds, with investors investing billions of dollars in blockchain infrastructure, decentralized applications and digital assets. However, despite growing institutional interest, inefficiency in capital and dispersion of liquidity across multiple chains has hindered large-scale adoption by traditional finance (TradFi) players. Chain abstraction changes this dynamic by removing operational barriers, optimizing capital deployment, and making blockchain-based financial tools more attractive to institutions.

One ​​of the main obstacles faced by institutional investors in Web3 is to control multi-chain liquidity and asset management. Unlike traditional financial markets, where capital can flow freely between asset classes with minimal friction, blockchain investment is currently scattered across multiple Layer 1 and Layer 2 ecosystems. Investment companies that want to deploy capital to on-chain earnings opportunities must allocate funds separately on Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and other networks, often requiring manual bridging, network-specific hosting solutions, and different execution strategies for each ecosystem. Particle Network’s universal liquidity layer solves this problem, allowing institutions to seamlessly deploy capital across chains, ensuring liquidity is always optimally allocated without human intervention. Institutional investors also need cost predictability and risk mitigation strategies, both of which are difficult to manage in today's gas-intensive and uncertain blockchain environments. The high volatility of transaction costs (especially on crowded networks like Ethereum) makesOn-chain financial strategies have become unpredictable and difficult to scale. Chain abstraction solves this problem by introducing gas abstract models such as Universal Gas Paymasters, which allow institutions to execute transactions without holding chain native assets. This means hedge funds can rebalance DeFi portfolios on multiple chains while paying gas fees with USDC or other stable assets, creating a more predictable and controllable operating environment.

Another major benefit of chain abstraction is the enhancement of transaction execution and settlement of on-chain financial products. Institutional investors who want to enter DeFi traditionally face the problems of liquidity diversification, risk of trading preemptive transactions and inefficient execution paths. Today, executing large transactions on the chain often lead to slippage, price impact, or transaction failure due to network congestion. With intent-based transaction execution models, such as those pioneered by the CoW protocol and LI.FI, institutions can express execution goals (e.g., exchange $10 million of ETH for USDC at the best available price), and then a network of solvers competes to complete the order under optimal conditions. This prevents MEV from being exploited, reduces execution risks, and ensures institutional-level transaction settlement.

In addition to transaction execution, institutions' adoption of DeFi lending and pledges is limited by the complexity of managing multiple sources of income across different chains. Today, funds seeking liquidity staking rewards on Ethereum (Lido), Solana (Marinade) and Cosmos (Stride) must manually allocate assets, bridge funds, and monitor earnings fluctuations. Chain abstraction supports cross-chain earnings aggregation, where liquidity providers can automatically access the highest earnings opportunities across multiple networks without the need to manually transfer assets. Particle Network’s intention-based execution ensures that capital is automatically deployed where the highest returns are generated, providing institutions with a frictionless experience that maximizes returns.

From a regulatory perspective, chain abstraction also reduces compliance risks associated with cross-chain transactions. Due to unclear reporting requirements and the difficulty in tracking on-chain activity across multiple networks, many organizations are reluctant to interact with DeFi. With a unified settlement layer, compliance teams can monitor all blockchain activity through a single interface, making it easier to manage exposure, conduct audits and report transactions according to regulatory requirements.

As crypto-native venture capital firms continue to allocate funds to infrastructure projects, chain abstraction is becoming the primary investment focus. In the fourth quarter of 2024, crypto venture capital funds grew month-on-month46%, a large part of the funds come from cross-chain infrastructure projects. Investors bet that seamless interoperability will be the decisive trend in the next phase of Web3 growth, thereby increasing efficiency, capital liquidity and institutional engagement. Ultimately, chain abstraction transforms blockchain from a decentralized ecosystem into a unified, seamless financial infrastructure, making it more attractive to institutional investors, traditional financial players and hedge funds. By eliminating capital inefficiency, reducing operational complexity and optimizing transaction execution, Chain Abstraction positions Web3 as a viable alternative to traditional financial markets—not only for retail users, but also for global financial institutions that want to allocate capital in the digital economy.

Challenges and Considerations

While chain abstraction has the potential to transform blockchain infrastructure by integrating liquidity, improving transaction efficiency and improving overall system availability, its widespread adoption also presents some key challenges. The transition to a completely abstract blockchain ecosystem brings challenges in security, decentralization, solver network dynamics, regulatory compliance and long-term economic sustainability. Effectively addressing these issues is crucial to ensure that chain abstract solutions maintain their trustless, license-free and scalable features while preserving the fundamental principles of blockchain technology.

Security risks and MEV exploitation

One ​​of the most critical challenges facing chain abstraction is security. Today, bridges are one of the most vulnerable components in the blockchain ecosystem, with more than $2.5 billion in losses caused by bridge hacking in the past two years. Since chain abstractions are inherently dependent on cross-chain execution and liquidity routing, the security risks associated with bridges and interoperability solutions remain the main concern.

The introduction of intent-based transactions and solver networks has also brought about a new attack surface. While the solvers compete to complete transactions under optimal conditions, the malicious solvers may attempt to manipulate pricing, preempt user intentions, or extract MEVs (maximum extractable value) at the expense of user interests. In traditional blockchains, the utilization of MEVs has led to serious inefficiencies, including sandwich attacks, priority gas auctions and transaction slippages. If solver networks are not designed properly, they may become centralized rent-seeking entities, seizing too much value and harming users rather than benefiting them.

To reduce these risks, encryption mechanisms such as private memory pools, zero-knowledge proofs, and fair order sorting must be implemented in the solver network. For example, the batch auction model of the CoW protocol minimizes MEV by executing transactions in a way that reduces adversarial trading strategies. Similarly, PartiThe cross-chain execution framework of cle Network uses cryptographic proofs to ensure that the solver runs transparently and cannot manipulate order flow.

Decentralized trade-offs Another major consideration for chain abstraction is the potential centralization of the execution network. Currently, many cross-chain execution systems rely on a small number of repeaters, validators, or sequencers to facilitate transaction settlement. If there are too few entities that control the infrastructure required to execute across chains, chain abstraction may become an ecosystem that requires permission and control, rather than a truly decentralized protocol.

For example, LayerZero is one of the most widely adopted cross-chain messaging protocols, which relies on a "repeater and oracle" system where trusted entities pass messages between chains. While this ensures efficiency, it also poses potential centralized risks. An optimistic execution model (transactions are executed on-chain and subsequently verified) provides a potential solution. EigenLayer’s shared security model and Babylon’s Bitcoin security verification are promising developments that can spread trust across a larger network of validators, reducing dependency on any single entity.

The balance between efficiency and decentralization has always been the focus of debate. While centralized solvers and execution networks can improve speed and reliability, they can also bring failure points and governance risks. An open, license-free solver network must be designed to prioritize censor resistance while maintaining high execution efficiency.

Regulation and compliance uncertainty

As chain abstraction can enable large-scale cross-chain execution, regulators may introduce new supervision measures to ensure compliance with AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (Know Your Customers) requirements. Financial regulators may view intent-based transactions and solver-driven execution models as opaque financial instruments, especially if users interact with multiple chains through a single execution layer without explicit judicial oversight.

The main regulatory concern is the responsibility for failure of cross-chain execution. If the user submits the intent and the solver fails to execute correctly, who should be responsible for the lost funds? Unlike centralized exchanges (CEX), centralized exchange regulations require protection of failed transactions, while the decentralized solver network is in a gray area with no clear legal framework. Additionally, as capital flows frictionlessly between chains, regulators may seek to enforce cross-border transaction tracking, which could affect the privacy-first nature of blockchain transactions.

Implement compliance friendsAgreements for good solutions such as zero-knowledge compliance proof or opt-in to regulatory frameworks may win institutional investors while retaining the core spirit of decentralization. Polygon’s AggLayer is exploring solutions that allow agencies to interact with DeFi in a way that complies with compliance requirements, suggesting how chain abstractions may need to balance privacy, transparency, and regulatory oversight. Economic feasibility and long-term sustainability

The sustainability of the chain abstract model is another key factor. Many chain abstract solutions rely on intent-based execution networks where solvers compete to execute transactions. However, the economic incentives that drive solver participation must be carefully designed to ensure long-term sustainability.

If the solver receives insufficient rewards for executing transactions, network participation may decline, thereby reducing execution quality and efficiency. Conversely, if the solver network is over-incentive, they may charge too high fees, resulting in inefficiency and rent-seeking behavior similar to Ethereum's MEV crisis. A carefully calibrated fee mechanism (such as dynamic solver rewards adjusted to execution needs) can help maintain a competitive and sustainable ecosystem.

In addition, the cost of running cross-chain infrastructure must be included in the long-term incentive model. Running a secure, decentralized execution node requires a large amount of resources, and the network must ensure that the revenue generated by transaction execution exceeds the operating costs. The introduction of modular blockchains and shared security models such as Celestia’s data availability layer can reduce the overhead required to maintain the solver network and ensure its long-term viability.

The road to the future: address challenges and unlock the full potential of chain abstraction

Despite these challenges, the industry is still taking quick steps to reduce risks and ensure chain abstraction remains decentralized, secure and economically sustainable. Innovation projects are already implementing encryption protection measures, open solver networks and compliance solutions to strike the right balance between efficiency and detrust.

As with any paradigm shift, a fully adopted path will require continuous iteration, security improvements and thoughtful economic design. If the industry can successfully address these issues, chain abstraction has the potential to be one of the most transformative innovations in Web3, creating a future where users, developers and organizations can interact seamlessly with blockchain—no need to consider the underlying complexity.

The future of Web3 is still unclear

The blockchain industry is at a critical moment. Although decentralized technology has been unlocked without permissionfinance, digital ownership and new economic models, but they are still trapped by complexity. The need for asset bridging, network switching, managing multiple wallets, and understanding gas fees has broken Web3, slowing mainstream adoption. Chain abstraction changes this pattern by making the blockchain infrastructure invisible, allowing users to interact seamlessly across chains without knowing which network they are on. Just like cloud computing abstracts server management, chain abstraction eliminates blockchain silos, ensuring that applications (not chains) become the focus of user experience. As this technology matures, Web3 will no longer be a space dominated by specific protocol barriers, but a unified ecosystem where users, developers and institutions can interact effortlessly. Universal accounts, seamless liquidity routing, intent-based transactions and gas abstractions will ensure that blockchain complexity is hidden under an intuitive, frictionless layer—starting the next era of massive adoption.

From an investment perspective, venture capital has prepared for this transformation, with billions of dollars flowing into cross-chain infrastructure, modular execution layers and liquidity aggregation protocols. Institutional participants are focusing on the potential of a unified financial market where capital flows on-chain as efficiently as in traditional markets. Meanwhile, gaming, social platforms and DeFi protocols are preparing for a world where users no longer need to think about which chain they are interacting with—they just need to interact with the app.

If a chain abstraction solution like Particle Network succeeds, the concept of "using blockchain" will be outdated. Just as today's Internet users don't need to know whether their favorite website is hosted on AWS or Google Cloud, future Web3 users don't need to care whether they interact on Ethereum, Solana, or Avalanche. Blockchain will disappear in the background, leaving only the applications, financial tools and digital experiences that users want.

Chapter abstraction is not just about reducing friction, it is also designed to create a seamless user experience. While some people think it abstracts risks by limiting the ability of users to evaluate individual chains, this is not entirely true. Most users don't want to analyze the risks of each chain - they just want to use the app efficiently.

For those who are willing, chain abstraction is still a user experience feature, not a limit. If users want, they can still do due diligence and maintain control.

The only question now is: Who will lead this transformation? The competition for full-chain abstraction has begun, and the projects that will first solve these challenges will determine the future of Web3.