Do you remember how servers used to be managed years ago?
For several years, companies in the Web 2.0 ecosystem had to manage their own servers. Servers that had constant need for maintenance, updates, and even security. The term “cloud” for virtual services appeared first in 1994 when General Magic used it to describe virtual spaces in its software but it was not until the 2000s before Cloud computing saw any real shape.
Amazon launched AWS in 2002, and in 2006, Amazon introduced services like Amazon S3 and EC2, which allowed users to store data and run applications in the cloud. NASA also helped develop software for private clouds in 2008. Over the next decade, many companies launched their own cloud services, like Microsoft Azure in 2010, IBM SmartCloud in 2011, and Oracle Cloud in 2012. By 2019, Amazon introduced AWS Outposts, allowing businesses to use Amazon’s cloud tools in their own data centers.
With the rise of cloud computing, businesses could offload all their tedious tasks to centralized providers centralized providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, lessening the burden of understanding the technicalities. The impact of this development was outstanding as companies could now scale without worrying about infrastructure, allowing them to focus on growth, innovation, and customer experience. The use of Cloud computing was a game changer, as it provided access to a powerful computing resource, and gave rise to an entirely new era in Web 2.0.
However, this development opened up new challenges, especially with centralization and control, and this is where Chain abstraction comes in.
What is Chain Abstraction?
Chain Abstraction models the idea of cloud computing and offers the same service for Web3 Ecosystems. That is, taking away blockchain complexities to allow developers focus on building incredible applications.
To define Chain abstraction, it is a process that explains and simplifies blockchain technology better by removing the complexities of the diverse blockchains from users, developers and enthusiasts. This allows the users to transact with decentralized applications (DApps) and use digital assets without the need to understand the technical details of each blockchain.
The strategy behind chain abstraction is very simple: Users should not realize when they are using a blockchain, or which blockchain they are using. That means the operations on each blockchain technology should be very seamless.
How Chain Abstraction Compares And Contrasts To Cloud Computing
Cloud computing simplified infrastructure but it also created new challenges. Firstly, a handful of corporations now had control of vast amounts of data, with users and companies relying on these centralized entities for storage, computation, and even privacy. As a result, data breaches, outages, and a lack of transparency became recurring issues.
The Web 3.0 Ecosystem offered a new way forward by offering on-chain abstractions. Instead of relying on centralized servers, Web 3 leverages blockchain technology to decentralize the storage, computation, and execution of processes.
Think of it as an open, transparent, and immutable system of “cloud” services that no single entity controls. This shift in abstraction ensures greater ownership, security, and trust for users, where data and transactions are not locked behind corporate walls, but instead spread across a decentralized network.
On-chain abstractions take things a step further than cloud computing by changing how we interact with digital services. In Web 2, cloud computing services allow businesses to scale, but those services still rely on centralized control. On-chain abstractions in Web 3 remove this need altogether, providing the tools for developers to build decentralized apps (dApps) where ownership, data, and governance are distributed.
You may ask, why does any of these matter?
Well, the impact of cloud computing in Web 2 cannot be denied. It allowed companies to rapidly innovate , scale globally, and offer services to billions of users. But it also came with risks. On the other hand with on-chain abstractions, Web 3 opens up an entire new frontier for decentralization, enhancing privacy, security, and accessibility while reducing reliance on centralized providers.
That means, if you agree that cloud computing was the catalyst for scaling businesses in Web 2.0, then you will agree that on-chain abstractions will be the catalyst for scaling decentralized services in Web 3. Just as cloud computing disrupted Web 2.0 by offering flexibility and freedom, on-chain abstractions are designed to do the same for Web 3, as it aims to enable a more open and decentralized internet.
In a world where trust is increasingly fragile, these services are not just necessary, they’re inevitable.
Use Case For On-chain Abstractions: OKTO
Okto is leveling up chain abstraction by building a fully expressive orchestration layer. Okto offers developers a unified platform to build next-generation applications on web3 rails by providing simple SDKs on one hand, and access to Protocol / community created Blocs on the other hand (think easy-to-use scripts). Okto does the heavy lifting of abstracting web3 complexities across fragmented ecosystem while providing users web2 like experiences.
In essence, with Okto, multi-chain development is as simple as using AWS.The Okto Orchestration Layer (‘Okto’), is a middleware that solves for experience for developers and end users onon the one hand, and GTM for web 3 protocols/ chains on the other hand. By enabling it via a chain,it provides massive permissionless, decentralized scalability that enables expressiveness and solves for a large number of use cases and experiences.
Okto Achieves This Through 3 Core Components
● The Oktoapp chain orchestrates the entire solution. It stores unified user accounts (including permissions etc.), transaction information, set-upinformation,and protocols’ Blocs. All other components inherit trustfrom this immutable app chain ledger.
This chain is not a typical user-centric chain thatkeeps user account assets or has TVL/liquidity; this is a middleware chain that instead contains information required to orchestrate seamless transactions while user assets and liquidity/TVL still lie on the underlying chain the protocol operates on.
This is built as a rollup-based appchain, secured and network-incentivized bythe $OKTO token. The intent of this chain is to be built as a rollup to one the existing secure/scalable blockchain tostartwith, but with required changes that enable seamless orchestration.
There are several components to the chain,sub-components that include:
○A Bloc Hub, where web3 protocols/chains build and deploy Blocs (or scripts) that enable connectivity into Okto with a simpler set of primitives. Different blocks could be composed to create new blocs as well.
○A unified set of APIs that app developers can use to enable web3 use cases in their apps while providing familiar/simple user experiences. These simple AP primitives are built to abstract and significantly reduce development time /complexity.
●Decentralized Wallet Networks (akaDWNs) enable Unified Wallet Accounts, which are MPC-secured, and enable permissions/delegation through the appchain’s ledger. The user delegates wallets on this network to sign on their behalf based on the permissions provided.
This enables delegated flows across chains that support Account Aggregation(EVMecosystems) and even for those with more straightforward EOA/ UTXO or other such account constructs on ecosystems like BTC, SOL,and MOVE-based ecosystems like APTOS/SUI,etc.
●Decentralized Transaction Networks(akaDTNs) perform asynchronous Transaction Orchestration across blockchains and protocols. Transaction management provides a chain abstracted, gas abstracted, protocol-abstracted, transaction-lifecycle-abstracted experience to developers and their end-users.
For example, a developer will not have to manage multiple steps inside a simple transaction like once management, gas-fee estimation, failures and retries,asset assertions,data indexing,etc. Such management,when done across chain ecosystems and standards, becomes unmanageable, and DTN solves it with asynchronous state management.
The DWN and DTN are built as off-chain actor-networks since transaction orchestration requires a synchronous management across chains,which is currently not supported by the virtual machines of any mature chain ecosystem.
They are built as network actor nodes that are still secured via a decentralized approach of nodes incentivized andsecured by the crypto-economic security the native token $OKTO.
