“DappOS created a common platform to connect technology among different blockchains, which enables both better developers and users experience in the Web3 world”
— Michael Li, VP of Data, Coinbase
Introduction
Have you ever wondered what Web3.0 will eventually look like? The industry researchers, incumbents, and users all, more or less, have their own narratives and imagination. Undoubtedly, blockchain technology has empowered the internet with new development possibilities and great potentials, and the future Web3.0 will create a new concept and a new way of operation in data storage and sharing, identity authentication, money transaction, socializing, etc. What is fascinating about Web3.0 also attracts a large number of developers to engage in the construction of the underlying public chain and infrastructure, as well as the development of various types of dApps.
The public chains, as the underlying support, have been favored by the big capital, developers, and institutions. We have witnessed the prosperity of Layer1 led by Ethereum; Blockchains like BSC, Polkadot, Avalanche, Solana, Fantom, Near, etc. have also come to the market one after another. Now, we are witnessing the construction and growth of Layer2. In addition, the new generations of Layer1 are drawing market’s attention, such as Aptos, Sui and other public chains. Each public chain is striving to improve in its decentralization, scalability, security, Gas fee, speed, developer friendliness, etc. As a result, the competition in the market is fiercely intense.
The essential part of the multi-chain market is cross-chain and multi-chain operations. For dApps with single-chain deployment, acquiring users from other public chains is extremely difficult and costly, such as Perpetual; for dApps with multi-chain deployment, to acquire more traffic and users, after completing multi-chain deployment, the expenditures of improving liquidity and maintain operations for each chain is high, for example, Sushi has a mediocre liquidity on BSC. At the same time, Web3.0 users need to distinguish the ecosystems they belong to and perform related operations in the corresponding ecosystem when they are using the applications, which makes the numbers of choices limited.
Consequently, it’s urgent for dApps developers to make sure multiple chains are available and can be operated uniformly with one deployment. As for dApps users, their top need is the ease to use and no public chain selection. Among the 12 projects recently announced by Binance Labs Incubator Program Season 5, four of which belong to the infrastructure category.
Therefore, we are proud to present you with dappOS, a solution to handle cross-chain operations among public chains, dApps, and users in a more convenient way, and this article will analyze the project and explain how it achieves this vision.
Background
In Web 3.0, infrastructure is defined as the tools, services, and architectures that allow the deployment, construction, and use of dApps at scale. Therefore, public chains, under a broader context, are also a type of infrastructure. Infrastructure plays a pivotal role in blockchain, carrying the daily operation of a large number of market applications and ensuring the ecosystem is functioning properly, which is very competitive.
Competition between public chains & Competition between cross-chain communication protocols
As mentioned above, the development and competition of public chains are getting more and more intense. Since there are trade-offs in the design and development among different chains, each and every single public chain differs in their own way. As the leading public chain, Ethereum adopts Layer2 in addition to Layer1 in order to scale and increase TPS, which is used to handle larger volume of transaction. While DOT adopts relay-chain + parallel-chain to make scalability possible. Cosmos takes similar approaches as DOT for scalability. Public chains like Avalanche, Solana, Fantom and others focuses more on TPS; Near for shards; BSC for traffic; AR specifically for storage; and the recent new generation public chain SUI, Aptos ……
Whether it’s veteran or newbie, public chains are fighting with each other for more applications and users in the market. At the infrastructure level, aside from public chains, cross-chain communication protocols are also one of the very competitive areas. It’s created to solve lack of interoperability for asset and information among public chains. The essence of cross-chain development is to make the blockchain even more decentralized and break the barriers that stall the development of public chains: Firstly, projects operated on different public chains can better function together, thus forming a larger Web3.0 network effect; Secondly, public chains are able to share their liquidity more efficiently, and more dApps can be carried as a result.
Currently, there are hundreds of cross-chain projects: MultiChain, Layerzero and so on, but they are limited by scale, cost, user experience, and security. Even though the competition level is high, it’s believed there’s still a long way to go before we can have an ideal cross-chain project in the market.
Mobile Internet competition: Pivot from hardware to operating system
According to a report in January 2022, there are currently 4.95 billion Internet users worldwide, representing 62.5% of the world’s population, an increase of 192 million compared to the previous year, and an average monthly growth of 16 M. Additionally, users spend, on average, nearly 7 hours per day on the Internet, of which 92.1% use the Internet through their cell phones. This is driven by the need for user experience and ease of operation.
Initially, the Internet could only publish, share, and interact with information, and its servers and other hardware were huge in size and small in storage capacity. With the increase of users in numbers, the huge amount of content and data made hardware facilities overloaded, which further made the costs of storage and processing costs too high.
Therefore, most companies started to seek solutions in hardware, optimizing CPUs, storge, motherboards, drives, expansion cards, etc. After pushing hardware to its limits, with the advent of portable smart phones, companies began to improve user experience, so that users can have a smoother experience of all the functions and applications on mobile devices. At this phase, companies are competing for operating systems — — IOS and Android are the two most common operating system. Earlier this year, Chinese tech giant Huawei also launched their own operating system- Hongmeng Harmony in order to improve market competitiveness and become less dependent on other operating systems.
Application developers, for sure, have to develop correspondingly for different operating systems, in order to bring a better experience to users. Based on using habits, users would have the best experience when applications match the operating system. If applications and operating system are not incompatible, or poorly compatible, users will encounter a variety of problems such as lagging, display problems, or even unable to open.
In summary, some of the problems we come across nowadays in Web 3.0 are similar to Web 2.0, such as ecological incompatibility, developing accordingly for different systems. So, how can we solve these problems in Web3.0? dappOS is inspired by the mobile device operating system and is committed to become an operating system that aggregates multiple chains in Web3.0, so that dApps developers can deploy it with one click and users can achieve cross-chain operations without any unnecessary moves.
dappOS’s objectives
dappOS is one of the finalists in the fifth season of the Binance Labs Incubation Program, and stood out from hundreds of projects that submitted applications.
dappOS is positioned to virtualize the public chain and help users manage the operating protocols of numerous dApps. Through SDK, virtual wallet, and dApps, integration platform not only enables one-click multi-chain deployment for developers, but also helps users easily access any dApps, making dApps as user-friendly as Web 2.0 Apps. The protocol was built with the idea of creating a channel between users and cryptographic infrastructure (public chains and cross-chain bridges, etc.). Users only need to learn how to use dappOS, and dappOS will take care of all the work that involves complex operations of interacting with the cryptographic infrastructure.
In simple English, all the complex operations between users and dApps can be completed by dappOS. For example, when a user in the Ethernet ecosystem wants to experience an application in the BSC ecosystem, there is no need to switch public chains because dappOS operating system can automatically implements this function.
Overall, dappOS is a combination of Web 2.0’s APP Store and operating system. It integrates many dApps and has its own wallet function, cross-chain function, payment function, etc. dApps deployed on one chain can acquire users from other public chains with significantly less costs, and for dApps deployed on multiple chains, they can easily copy their advantages from chain A to chain B. It reduces the work of developers and operation teams, allowing them to focus on improving their own applications. It also provides users with faster and simpler operations, increasing the range of options and experiences, for example, ETH users can experience dApps from other chains with lower gas fees.
In the longer term, dappOS will be able to accomplish the task of sharing resources and liquidity of different application, helping billion of users to enter Web3.0.
The main functions of dappOS
The technical solution of dappOS V1 consists of two main parts: dappOS Account based on Account Abstraction (AA) and dappOS Network which solves the problem of automated execution of operations.
dappOS Account is a contract wallet based on Account Abstraction. Compared with the ordinary EOA, dappOS Account can realize Gas payment and provide the basis for automating the execution of complex workflows that can be combined. It also has a login method that is more in line with Web2 users’ habits and helps more users to enter Web3 by getting rid of mnemonic phrase.
Supported permission management methods will include
— Third-party wallets (e.g. MetaMask)
— Device to device resets
— Email login via ZK and DKIM
— Traditional mnemonic methods
There is no centralized hosting involved in dappOS Account. Even if dappOS’ service is suspended, users can still continue to use DappOS Account by manual operation.
The dappOS Network is used to solve the problem of automated execution of operations, through the services provided by the network, users can easily manage the account abstractions distributed across different chains, and can confirm public chain interactions of any complexity by providing a signature. V1 already supports the automation of complex workflows consisting of tasks like cross-chain execution of funds and contract interactions.
The consensus mechanism of dappOS is implemented through nodes, which consists of 2 types
— Super nodes: responsible for delegating orders to server nodes, and for rewards and punishments.
— Service nodes: responsible for receiving orders from the super nodes and executing them. Gaining certain benefits, such as Alchemy Pay, etc.
When a user submits a request or task, the super node will assign it and the server node will give the result back to the user after completion. If the service node does not execute as expected, the super node will use the funds staked by the service node to compensate the user after reaching an agreement.
To improve speed and optimize rates, dappOS Network allows various types of third-party service nodes to join the network to compete. Meanwhile, security is ensured by over-collateralization of service nodes, and the process is executed first before consensus is reached to judge whether the execution is successful so that user’s waiting time can be shortened.
Super nodes use DPOS consensus mechanism, and the number will be stabilized at 20 when the main network is online. Super nodes require staking platform coins, and for each transaction, the service node will distribute the fee revenue to the super node in the form of platform coins.
Based on the technical solution of dappOS, the products launched by dappOS, which were briefly mentioned above, will be further elaborated here. The products of dappOS can be generally divided into To B products and To C products, and they will be differentiated in the functional implementation as well.
To B: For dApps developers and dappOS JS SDK of teams
No need to re-deploy the contract to attract traffic, integration of SDK in the front-end will make it as convenient for A-chain users to use B-chain dApps. For example, dApps deployed on non-Ethereum chain can easily attract users from ETH after integration, eliminating the need to guide users across chains, purchase Gas, and set up wallets. At the same time, It helps dApps deployed on multiple chains erase the boundaries of users between each chain and replicate their advantages in chain A to chain B. For example, in the lending agreement, users can follow the same interaction process to choose the chain with the highest yield rate given a certain coin, to avoid the situation that being successful on chain A, but having 0 data on chain B.
To C: Applet platform
dappOS will launch a program platform for mobile-end, based on which dApps users can have an experience similar to Web2’s. Compared with the traditional wallet + browser model, dappOS’s platforms have the advantages as followings:
Account aspect
- Removal of mnemonic phrase: accounts can be retrieved via different devices, email login and other permission management methods that are easy to use.
- Unified accounts: Users do not need to be knowledgeable of the details of the public chain. Similar to CEX, users only need to know the total number of coins, and do not need to know the chain where the coins are located on, making it easy to achieve portfolio payment.
DApps Interaction
The applet interaction will hide most of the complex details for common users, such as Gas payments, cross-chain, approve, and other auxiliary contract interaction steps. Common users only need to confirm the total expenditure, click once to confirm, and all interactions will be completed automatically. The difficulty level is basically the same as Web2 application except for the time of public chain transaction confirmation.
Currently, dappOS has partnered with Perpetual and launched a technology integration pilot project.
To better understand the role dappOS plays, let’s compare the differences before and after clients use it.
dappOS simplifies numerous operation steps into a few steps and saves time for users. Official announcements said that the current trial version only supports limited types of coins and public chains, and will be add more later.
In terms of security, dappOS adopts security deposit. When transaction occurs, assets of the service nodes that are responsible for processing will be locked, and the assets locked will exceed the number of assets traded by the user, so if there’s anything going wrong with the transaction, users can be compensated.
The number of dApps in Web3.0 is small compared to Web2.0, but it is still overwhelming given the limited size of crypto user base.. Through dappOS, the management of dApps can also be achieved conveniently and quickly. Additionally, the simple operation system can also attract more users who are new to the crypto world and serve as a steppingstone for user conversion. This design concept and mechanism of dappOS also provides a new way of thinking for crypto developers to attract and retain users, and is a feasible solution to convert a large number of Web2.0 users.
Current progress and cooperations
Currently, the first phase of dappOS SDK has been developed and slowly but surely carried out product experiments. Several top dApps have been testing their products on dappOS and have come into agreement for collaboration with dappOS. We are cooperating with 50+ communities, and managing to achieve million-dollar transaction volume and TVL on a day-to-day basis. Polygon, Avalanche, Benqi, Perpetual, Alchemy Pay, etc. are all partners at current phase. The seed round of funding is also taking place at the same time.
Secondly, we are also actively seeking for partnership with Binance Labs to get as much support as possible as we are one of the Binance Labs incubation finalist projects.
Next, we will start the test version of dappOS Network before the main network according to our roadmap. We will integrate most of the top dApps in the industry and cooperate with more projects. Tokens will also be issued after the launch of the main network. By that time, we are expecting to see daily transaction volume and TVL in billions.
Competitor Analysis
Vision
The development and evolution of Web 3.0 is profound, and the number of users will continue to grow and accumulate over time. According to the data released by Crypto.com in January 2022, by the end of 2021, the number of crypto asset owners have reached 295 million with an average monthly growth of 13.4M. Compared to the 4.95 billion Internet users, however, there is still a long way to go for growth. Meanwhile, according to DappRadar, there are only12,771 dApps available compared to 1.8 million apps available on IOS alone in Web2.
Infrastructures and applications are not comprehensive and mature enough at current stage because there is still huge volume of users out there who cannot enter Web3.0 easily. Therefore, in addition to the technical improvement required by Web3.0 itself, product optimization and user experience improvement will also be an important part of the competition that cannot be ignored. dappOS will serve as the operating protocol for removing barriers between the many dApps and the large number of users in the process, transferring billions of users into the We3.0 world and empowering the entire ecosystem.
