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NEAR Protocol

What is NEAR Chain Abstraction?

The NEAR ecosystem has been advancing the vision of chain abstraction since its inception in 2018, focusing on usability, a flexible account model, and a highly scalable blockchain to support mainstream applications for billions of users. Today, NEAR's stack has evolved to fully support chain abstraction across various chains and applications.

Key Features

  • Scalable Blockchain: NEAR offers an integrated, scalable blockchain capable of supporting over 1 billion daily active accounts.

  • Security Aggregation Stack: Includes NEAR Data Availability (DA), zkWASM (in collaboration with Polygon Labs), and EigenLayer-powered Fast Finality for enhanced security.

  • Account Aggregation: Enables transactions across multiple chains using a single account, simplifying the user experience.

  • Comprehensive Data Layer: Supports various types of chains, including monolithic, modular, private, and permissioned, all within a predictable protocol.

  • Intent Relayers: Execute complex intents across chains using NEAR's infrastructure, facilitating seamless cross-chain operations.

  • Decentralized Frontends: Provide discoverability and composability for multiple apps across chains, creating a unified user experience.

  • Super (App) Wallets: User-friendly wallets that allow seamless navigation across Web3 without the need to switch networks, manage gas tokens, or use bridges.

Overview

Chain abstraction simplifies the user experience by abstracting away the complexities of blockchain technology. Users should not need to know they are interacting with a blockchain or even which blockchain they are using.

NEAR Protocol supports this vision by offering services that allow for:

  • Account Creation and Recovery: Accounts can be created and recovered using email addresses, removing the need for seed phrases and private key management.

  • Gas Fee Management: Developers can subsidize gas fees, enabling users to interact with dApps without needing to acquire funds or deal with gas tokens.

  • Cross-Chain Interactions: NEAR enables users to transact across different blockchains using a single NEAR account, with multi-chain signatures facilitating these interactions.

Key Components of NEAR Chain Abstraction

  • Fast-Auth: Email Onboarding: Allows users to create a NEAR account with just an email address, simplifying the onboarding process and enabling cross-application and cross-device usage. Accounts are secured through multi-party computation (MPC) on a decentralized network, ensuring the safety of private keys.

  • Relayers: Cover Gas Fees: NEAR's relayer system allows users to start using dApps without acquiring funds. Relayers attach NEAR to cover gas fees, submitting transactions on behalf of the user as if the user had sent them directly.

  • Multi-Chain Signatures: NEAR's multi-chain signature service allows users to interact with multiple blockchains using a single NEAR account. This eliminates the need for separate accounts on each chain and simplifies cross-chain interactions for both users and developers.

Chain Abstraction: The Holistic View

NEAR's approach to chain abstraction creates a seamless user experience where blockchain technology operates in the background. Users can log in with an email, create zero-fund accounts, and interact with applications across different blockchains without needing to manage private keys, seed phrases, or cryptocurrency.

The combination of Fast-Auth, relayers, and multi-chain signatures allows users to engage with blockchain-based applications intuitively and securely, while developers benefit from a unified infrastructure that supports cross-chain functionality.

Learn more: https://docs.near.org