The Revolution of User Experience in Chain Abstraction Wallets

Published in

NEAR Protocol

8 min readMar 25, 2024

Digital currency wallets are everyone’s first step into the decentralized world. Through these wallets, users manage their digital currency assets, execute on-chain transfers, receive payments, and interact with decentralized applications (Dapp).

Since the inception of blockchain in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the crypto industry has grown, and its user base has expanded. This growth has spurred continuous innovation in digital currency wallets, enhancing both their security and user-friendliness.

At the end of 2023, NEAR introduced the concept of chain abstraction, proposing innovative solutions to address the fragmented management issues of multi-chain wallets. This discussion explores how blockchain wallets revolutionize user experience and how chain abstraction wallets elevate this experience to a new level.

The Evolution of User Experience in the History of Cryptocurrency Wallets

From Full Nodes to Light Wallets: Reducing Wallet Device Requirements

In the annals of cryptocurrency wallets, full nodes have played a foundational role. These are nodes that validate the rules of Bitcoin, each inherently equipped with wallet functionality. Back in the early days, blockchain enthusiasts eager to hold and use Bitcoin would deploy a full node, employing it as their wallet. This kind of setup offered heightened privacy and security, along with access to the full suite of Bitcoin Core features.

However, from the user experience perspective, full node wallets presented a formidable challenge for non-expert users. To utilize a full node wallet, one had to synchronize the full node, immerse themselves in a sea of technical knowledge about Bitcoin, and allocate a significant portion of their device’s storage space — currently, a Bitcoin full node exceeds 550GB. Moreover, the astounding aspect is that operating a full node is required for each blockchain project, which, in today’s environment of a multitude of blockchains, becomes an insurmountable task for the average user.

Satoshi Nakamoto, in the original Bitcoin whitepaper, envisioned a solution to this dilemma with the design of light nodes, or “Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) clients.” Unlike full nodes, these clients do not require the downloading of the entire blockchain data to verify transactions. SPV wallets significantly reduce the need for device storage but still require the storage and synchronization of a copy of the blockchain’s Block Header data. This requirement is manageable for devices like desktops, but it becomes relatively costly for mobile devices.

Thus, the emergence of light wallets came as a response to these evolving needs. Today, the mainstream mobile and browser extension wallets, such as Metamask and Trust Wallet, stand as the most common examples of light wallet design. Light wallets focus on performing core operations, like private key management and transaction signing, while delegating the remainder of wallet functions, such as asset data display and transaction notifications, to backend APIs.

From full node wallets to light wallets, the hardware requirements for wallets have progressively decreased, making them accessible to a broader audience. Blockchain wallets have transcended their niche origins to become a staple in the digital lives of a crypto-native person, marking a significant democratization of access to the blockchain ecosystem. This evolution underscores a pivotal shift: blockchain wallets are no longer just the tools of specialists but have become truly integrated into the fabric of everyday life.

HD Wallets: Managing Multi-Chain Wallets with a Single Private Key

In the earliest Bitcoin clients, the Bitcoin client used randomly generated keys. To avoid the need to backup after every transaction, 100 keys were cached in a reserve key pool by default. However, these wallets were not intended to be shared and used across multiple systems.

Simultaneously, the emergence of an increasing number of Altcoins (with Litecoin starting on November 9, 2011, and Dogecoin appearing in 2013) posed a new challenge: the need to create and backup a wallet for each blockchain.

The issues mentioned were addressed by BIP32, BIP43, and BIP44 through the Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) Wallets scheme. With the design of HD wallets, a single private key can generate addresses for multiple chains and accounts, significantly simplifying the complexity of private key management.

Mnemonic Phrases: Simplifying Private Key Management

BIP39 introduced a method that simplifies the management of private keys from recording a complex set of characters to noting down a sequence of 12 or 24 words. This innovation made paper wallets viable, where private keys are written down on paper. Compared to the previous method of managing keys as a complex code, using words for private key management is simpler and offers more diverse recording methods.

Example of a Private Key Style

d71de856f81a8acc65e6fc851a38d4d7ec216fd0796d0a6827a3ad6ed5511a30fa280f12eb2e47ed2ac03b5c462a0358d18d69fe4f985ec81778c1b370b652a8

Corresponding Mnemonic Words

letter advice cage absurd amount doctor acoustic avoid letter advice cage above

Decentralized Domains: Readable Addresses

Even today, blockchain addresses remain a source of confusion. Under the same private key, each blockchain retains its unique address format:

Bitcoin Address: bc1pl3jqg3xahfu4kg09f3y4wnw27me46je66e7uukp854f4zfyptgws9a95ch

Ethereum Address: 0x3cb2a9f92b4a2a483653ce23c349c35f15000c7a

Solana Address: JAyjjSZ2K4vEp7oZWCSrtMQAV21EXDqMtCeK2A4875Gv

ERC137 introduced the Ethereum Domain Name Service, transforming the display of addresses from complex strings to readable names, like Sender.eth. This transition not only facilitates address display and transactions but also integrates addresses with various Web2 social products. It’s common to see individuals display their addresses on Twitter accounts, using them as proof of their Crypto identity.

Currently, almost all new blockchains have their own Name Service, and we’re seeing several multi-chain Name Services attempting to deploy across a majority of blockchains. However, this still faces challenges: multi-chain domain systems often only support EVM-compatible chains and struggle to accommodate non-smart contract systems like Bitcoin.

ERC4377: The Boundless Imagination of Programmable Wallets

Account abstraction wallets transform user’s Externally Owned Accounts (EOA) into smart contract wallets, endowing wallets with “programmability.” This innovation can be seen as one of the most significant advancements in blockchain wallets recently, granting them several functionalities:

Web2 Account Logins: Enables logins via Google, Apple, email, Passkey, etc., greatly simplifying the onboarding process for users.
Social Account Recovery: Even if mnemonic phrases are forgotten, users can regain access to their accounts.
Multi-signature and Hierarchical Management: Supports multi-signature management of wallet accounts and the setting of permissions.
Flexible Gas Fee Payment Logic: Allows the payment of gas fees with non-ETH tokens and supports external sponsorship of gas-free transactions.
Batch Transactions for On-chain Execution: Users can fulfill their intentions with a single transaction.
Multi-device Logins: PassKey technology enables multi-device login for the same wallet.

Since the launch of ERC4377, a large number of wallets and projects have integrated some of its functionalities, especially Web2 account logins and gas fee logic, significantly lowering the barrier to entry into the industry.

However, the core challenges of programmable wallets include:

Different chains have different implementations of ERC4377. Even within the Ethereum ecosystem, there are varied implementations among EVM-compatible chains, zksync, Starknet, and others, not to mention differences with non-Ethereum systems like NEAR.
Blockchains that do not support smart contracts, especially significant ones like Bitcoin, still cannot implement programmable wallets.

Blockchain wallets, covering virtually all users, continue to evolve in anticipation of true mass adoption of blockchain. The cutting-edge developments in progress include:

Wallets supporting AI and natural language conversations
Intent-centered wallets
Chain abstraction wallets

Sender, keeping pace with the technological advancements of NEAR, aims to provide users with a super wallet based on chain abstraction, heralding a new era of convenience and innovation in the blockchain space.

A Brief Overview of Wallet Design under NEAR’s Chain Abstraction Technology

With the rise of modularity and Layer 2 solutions, any application can now quickly build its own blockchain. The increasingly complex and fragmented multi-chain experience of Web3 has become the biggest issue for mass adoption. Chain abstraction aims to solve the problem of multi-chain fragmentation.

NEAR has introduced a chain abstraction technology architecture, which includes but is not limited to:

Scalable, integrated blockchains capable of supporting over 1 billion daily active accounts.
A secure, aggregated technology stack, including NEAR Data Availability, zkWASM (in collaboration with Polygon Labs), and EigenLayer-powered Fast Finality.
Account aggregation on this basis, allowing transactions across all chains with a single account.
The data layer supports everything from monolithic, integrated, modular, private, and permissioned chains to querying data in prediction protocols.
Intent relayers that can execute complex intents on-chain using this infrastructure.
Decentralized frontends provide discoverability and composability for multiple cross-chain applications, integrated into one experience.
Super (app) wallets, which are user-friendly and offer a way to navigate all of Web3 without the hassle of switching networks or dealing with Gas tokens and bridges.

Sender Wallet aims to be the user experience layer of chain abstraction, serving as a gateway for new users to enter the crypto world. It is designed with the following features:

Account Abstraction Wallet: Supports Web2 login methods, allowing users to access various Web3 applications without the need to remember mnemonic phrases or private keys.
Readable Domain Names: All users of Sender will have readable blockchain account names.
Universal Chain Address Management: Users need only manage a NEAR address to generate and manage addresses and assets across multiple chains.
Universal Chain Interaction Application Market: Users, holding NEAR assets (such as NEAR, USDC), can interact with blockchain applications across all chains through Sender Wallet. This includes trading MEME on a DEX on SOL, inscribing or creating runes on Bitcoin, and using the most mature and deep DeFi on ETH.
Universal Chain DEX: Enables users to trade assets across chains without the need for cross-chain transactions. Ref has already conducted some analysis on this track.
Flexible Gas Payment Methods: Whether on the NEAR mainnet or other chains, gas fees can be paid with NEAR, USDC, or even SSD (Sender Token).
Intent Relayers: Any user’s cross-chain intentions can be realized with just a single transaction.

With these features, Sender aims to allow newcomers to the crypto world to overlook the concept of chains and focus more on their intentions, i.e., the use of applications. For professional users, Sender will still be able to perform functions similar to those of current HD wallets.

Sender is positioned to be the closest experience to Web2 while still ensuring decentralization and security, a super app wallet with more details and products to be unveiled gradually.

About Sender

Sender Wallet is a multi-chain digital asset management platform providing a one-stop solution for secure and convenient asset management. With over 1 million downloads, we are committed to evolving alongside the dynamic landscape of Web3 and digital currencies. Backed by industry leaders such as Binance Labs and Pantera, Sender Wallet remains at the forefront of secure and user-friendly asset management solutions.