Messari: What’s next for chain abstraction?

Original article by Kinji Steimetz, Messari Analyst

Original translation: Luffy, Foresight News

In my latest Messari report , I explored the trend towards chain abstraction in detail. This post will briefly summarize the core content of the report.

The cryptocurrency industry has been obsessed with debating the endgame of infrastructure and application development. While these predictions and analyses are often exciting, it overlooks a key factor in success: timing. Building or investing with a long-term perspective means you are betting that future scenarios will play out exactly as predicted. In short, focusing on the endgame means you are building for future needs rather than current needs.

Chain abstraction has fallen into this “endgame” narrative:

• Users want a better cross-chain experience (current demand)

• Users want aggregated liquidity (current demand)

• Users want the protocol to decide which chain to use (future requirement)

• Users want the protocol to decide which application to use (future requirement)

The first two points have been covered thoroughly, so I will focus on the second two and why I think we are far from the stage where users want the protocol to decide which chain and application to use. This also fits with my near-term view of blockchain abstraction (2-3 years).

Users prefer specific blockchains

Currently, 90% of DeFi activity is concentrated on 7 blockchains, with Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Arbitrum accounting for 75%. This shows that users have a clear preference for specific blockchains. This concentration is largely due to limited cross-chain token deployment: users choose blockchains based on where the token is available. Since tokens are mostly chain-specific, there is no need for chain abstraction to decide which chain to use.

In order for chain pumping to become widespread and successful, we need more cross-chain token deployments that allow solvers to decide which chain offers the best option.

Users prefer specific apps

While limited cross-chain token deployment explains some of the concentration of on-chain activity, it does not fully explain the dominance of certain applications.

This happens because most products on the market are similar and there are limited on-chain operations to choose from.

Users will generally choose the protocol with the largest scale. Unless we see more diverse and differentiated applications, there is no reason for users to outsource their decisions on protocols. If this diversity increases, users may need to do more research to find the right application.

Chain Abstraction Recent Outlook

In my opinion, the possible development directions of chain abstraction in the next two to three years are as follows:

1. Cross-chain bridge and cross-chain message transmission

As more applications integrate cross-chain messaging, the growth of cross-chain bridges will slow and the need for users to transfer assets between chains will decrease.

2. Intent-based applications

Intent-based applications will still work fine as long as the price of the service is competitive. With limited application diversity, solvers will compete more on speed and price rather than handling complex multi-protocol operations. Users already know which applications they want, so application decisions do not require solvers.

3. Messaging becomes a commodity

Interchain messaging protocols may become commoditized due to the small number of major ecosystems, which compete on price and security, limiting their ability to build strong network effects.