a16z: Crypto Industry 2024 Trend “Seamless User Experience”

Recently, a16z, a well-known crypto investment institution, released “Big ideas 2024”, which listed several trending “big ideas” in the crypto industry in 2024, among which Seamless UX (seamless user experience) is on the list.

From the most intuitive understanding, Seamless UX emphasizes that users feel smooth and uninterrupted when using products or services, without any annoying obstacles or inconsistent experiences. This often includes intuitive interface design, efficient operational processes, and sensitivity to user needs to ensure users are comfortable and happy throughout the interaction process.

Clearly, the encryption industry has not been able to balance well in terms of user transaction experience in the exploration of interoperability. With the industry’s emphasis on “Seamless UX,” it will also have a profound impact on the development of the encryption industry.

Early exploration of interoperability

Multichain development has become a long-term trend in the blockchain world. Starting from the early explosion of Layer 1 projects to the growth of the Ethereum-based Layer 2 solutions, the on-chain world has formed hundreds of large and small ecosystems. Even so, the trend of multi-chain development is still accelerating. For example, from the beginning of 2023 to the present, more than a dozen Layer 2 networks including Mantle Network (alpha), Base, Linea, StarkNet, Scroll, and Eclipse have successively launched the main network. With the iteration of technology, the multi-chain trend is becoming an important force driving the next wave of growth in the crypto industry. But the new problem is that under the trend of multi-chain development, it is difficult to reasonably establish interoperability between chains.

In the article “Decoding Cross-Chain Interoperability” by Binance Research, it was pointed out that the bottom layers of different chains have diverse choices in terms of code libraries, frameworks and designs, which means that almost every two chains are heterogeneous chains. And the fragmentation and fragmentation of the on-chain world are intensifying.

Based on this, developers are facing non-uniform tooling challenges, and users have to deal with the limitations of decentralized applications on specific chains, resulting in fragmented liquidity and less than ideal UI/UX (user interface/user experience) in the on-chain world. Therefore, whether it is developers or users, they all have the need to connect these chains, making the establishment of reasonable cross-chain interoperability an important topic of discussion in the cryptocurrency industry.

Cross-chain bridges are initially widely adopted interoperability solutions for the purpose of cross-asset. This type of solution usually implements cross-chains by locking assets and minting new assets on a specific chain (initially TVL is usually the main metric). It focuses more on a certain direction such as asset-specific, chain-specific, application-specific, etc.

However, data from Binance Research shows that the TVL of cross-chain protocols experienced rapid growth in 2021, followed by a sharp decline in the TVL of the cross-chain sector in 2022 due to the bear market and frequent security incidents. This means that when cross-chain interactions are inactive, the risk is lower. But as cross-chain interactions increase, the risk also escalates. The security of cross-chain operations is inversely proportional to their scale, reflecting that cross-chain solutions are usually established on the premise of sacrificing security. Early explorations of interoperability have sparked a series of security incidents, not only causing controversy but also causing many people to lose confidence in them.

It can be seen that the cross-chain bridge does play a very important role in the development of the industry, but it is only a temporary solution and is certainly not the final state of the cross-chain solution.

On the other hand, in the trend of multi-chains, the distribution of on-chain resources is extremely uneven. We see that leading ecosystem such as Ethereum, Tron, and BNB Chain control more than 75% of the TVL on the chain. Meanwhile, many emerging ecosystems, due to the lack of good interoperability solutions, find themselves in a competitive disadvantage in the battle for traffic, struggling to attract funds and users. This also poses challenges for the launch and long-term development of these emerging ecosystems. An obvious example is that some users are interested in airdrops of emerging Layer2 solutions, but the interaction comes with high costs and barriers.

So, in the trend of multi-chain development, it is crucial to connect different networks and achieve widespread adoption and value capture in the blockchain industry. Finding the right balance in cross-chain interoperability and improving user experience in transactions have also become early industry topics.

Underlying stack

Following the initial exploration of cross-chain interoperability, there have been new advancements in this field. Chainlink, LayerZero, Axelar, and others have introduced innovative cross-chain interoperability concepts. These platforms enable developers to build secondary applications with cross-chain interoperability by leveraging a distributed underlying stack. This stack guarantees versatility, scalability, and trustlessness.

Through these stacks, developers can more easily obtain cross-chain interoperability capabilities to help achieve better links between different chains and applications, thereby helping to-C users enter various ecosystems more smoothly while taking into account security. . The underlying stack is usually mainly aimed at to-B users, that is, developers. They usually need to be transferred and linked to to-C users through the application layer, but users still face high thresholds and complex operations.

Therefore, in addition to building reasonable cross-chain interoperability, it is also necessary to improve the quality of UI/UX in order to fully leverage network effects to help different chain ecosystems grow. However, at this stage, it is difficult for such cross-chain interoperability underlying stacks to directly achieve the “Seamless UX” direction, which usually requires a developer’s understanding.

DappOS, positioned as a “Web3 operating protocol,” has built a “transaction intent” framework and achieved the ultimate in UI/UX while implementing reasonable interoperability, becoming an example ecosystem in the direction of Seamless UX. Based on this, DappOS is also becoming an exemplary ecosystem that fully utilizes network effects to connect traffic from different chains.

Seamless UX Demo dappOS: a new traffic distribution platform

DappOS is building cross-chain interoperability in a more “intelligent” way. It has created a “transaction intent” framework consisting of two parts: Unified Account and dappOS Network.

The dappOS Unified Account abstracts the chains, allowing users to interact seamlessly with various Dapps without needing to worry about asset distribution or manually switch networks. With just one signature, users can achieve seamless interaction with different Dapps (executed by dappOS Network). It automates the execution of complex operations and allows for seamless workflows in the workspace.

DappOS Network is a distributed execution network composed of distributed nodes, responsible for executing user’s transaction instructions, such as cross-chain transactions, gas payment, and even some more complex transaction actions. This network is helping to bridge the gap between dappOS folding chains and chains to achieve chain abstraction.

Based on the abstraction characteristics of accounts and chains, the dappOS system serves as a connector for linking different chain ecosystems. Through the distributed dappOS Network, it helps achieve low-threshold interconnection between all access system ecosystems and applications, and has the ability to facilitate more comprehensive cross-chain interoperability. Cross-chain transactions can be directly performed at the application layer.

In the new version v2 of dappOS, traders are now able to combine the transaction functionalities of different Dapps on different chains through a unified account. For example, after borrowing and lending on Benqi in the Avalanche network, users can seamlessly use the borrowed funds on Perpetual or QuickSwap, and also repay the borrowed funds on Benqi on any chain.

This user-centric framework design is revolutionizing users’ habits in conducting transactions on different chains.

With dappOS, users only need to store their funds in a unified account, and they can easily achieve their intentions with just one click, similar to using traditional apps. They no longer need to manually execute complex steps for on-chain transactions, greatly reducing the cost of on-chain interactions and enhancing convenience. This also makes dappOS an excellent tool for on-chain transactions and interactions, allowing users to seamlessly connect applications and hotspots on public chains, with a high retention rate and user stickiness.

DappOS not only achieves great improvements in UI/UX, but also can well retain users in its UI/UX, which also makes dappOS become a new on-chain traffic pool.

In order to better guide the ecological traffic system and better leverage the network effect, dappOS v2 has also recently launched a new reward system, providing airdrop incentives to users who interact with each other through cooperation with some applications. Through this directional guidance, dappOS is rapidly injecting traffic into new public chains and application ecosystems, achieving efficient ecological growth.

Since dappOS v2 was launched in September in 2023, several use cases including Perpetual, Benqi, QuickSwap, Stader, etc. have been integrated, and they have achieved obvious growth effects through the traffic distribution system of dappOS.

After Perpetual Protocol launched dappOS v2 in October in 2023, it launched its first airdrop event through the dappOS reward system. The first batch of airdrop rewards have been issued to users who interact with Perpetual Protocol through unified accounts. The traffic pool in the dappOS ecosystem has also brought tangible growth to Perpetual Protocol.

In addition to Perpetual Protocol, dappOS supports users to seamlessly interact with Manta network dApps from Ethereum, Arbitrium, Avalanche and other chains, without the need for manual cross-chains, and the overall fee rate is reduced by 85%.

At the same time, interactions will also be accumulated into the reward system of dappOS v2, with the expectation of receiving multiple airdrops.

Currently, in the Manta Network network, more than 31% of the on-chain transaction volume comes from the dappOS side, and this proportion is still still steadily increasing. This not only reflects the gains brought by dappOS to on-chain Dapps and the growth of new public chain ecosystems, but also indicates the popularity of dappOS in the field of on-chain interaction, highlighting its outstanding features.

In addition, in the recent positive trend of the cryptocurrency market, the Avalanche ecosystem has also shown impressive performance. Especially noteworthy is the daily increase of over 130% in the ecosystem token QI of the top lending project Benqi, which has further fueled the demand for borrowing and staking on Benqi to earn rewards in QI assets.

dappOS has also become an excellent entrance for traders to use Benqi. Through the unified account of dappOS, it can support users to interact with Benqi with one click, and complete operations such as payment and staking from different chains without manual cross-chain. Rewards will be directly distributed to the dappOS v2 unified account in the form of QI and AVAX tokens.

As of December 12th 2023, according to data released by dappOS, 2 months after BENQI integrated dappOS, there were 4,848 new users and 28,571 transactions. The deposits of new dappOS users reached US$12,877,782, and USDT and USDC deposits accounted for 18.17% and 16.62% of the total number of BENQI protocols respectively. The amount of new dappOS user loans reached $7,199,765, and WBTC and WETH loan funds accounted for 80.57% and 45.75% of the total BENQI protocol respectively. This also shows that dappOS, as a traffic distribution end, has brought significant gains to the development of the Benqi protocol.

Examples of staking and loan:

https://staking.benqi.dappos.com/liquidStaking

https://benqi.dappos.com/Markets

For the exploration of interoperability, we are currently transitioning from early efforts to promote interconnection between different chains, ecosystems, and applications towards obtaining a better UI/UX direction. This will also be one of the narratives in the cryptocurrency industry for a long time to come. As an early explorer of the “Seamless UX” narrative, dappOS is becoming the main distribution hub in the blockchain world, helping new public chains and application ecosystems capture user traffic and achieve efficient growth empowerment. At the same time, it is also providing a reference for the evolution of on-chain application forms.

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