What is Chain Abstraction?
The idea behind chain abstraction is quite simple: blockchain technology should be abstracted away from the user experience. In other words, people should not realize when they are using a blockchain, nor which blockchain they are using.
To help on this task, NEAR Protocol provides services that allow to create and recover accounts using email addresses, use the account without acquiring funds, and control accounts in other chains. All in the most seamless way possible.
Fast-Auth: Email onboarding​
One of the first barriers that new users face when entering the world of Web3 is the need to create a crypto wallet. This generally implies the need to choose a wallet, create and store a recovery phrase, and obtain deposit funds to start using the account.
With FastAuth, users only need to provide an email address to create a NEAR account. Using the same email address the user will be able to use their account across applications and devices.
FastAuth accounts are kept safe through multi-party computation (MPC) on a decentralized network. This means that the user's private key is never stored in a single location, and thus it is never exposed to any single party.
Relayers: Cover gas fees​
Allowing users to start using a dApp without having to acquire funds is a powerful tool to increase user adoption. NEAR Protocol provides a service that allows developers to subsidize gas fees for their users.
This concept, known as "Account Abstraction" in other chains, is a built-in feature in NEAR. User can wrap transactions in messages known as meta-transaction, that any other account can relay to the network.
In NEAR the relayers simply attach NEAR to cover gas fees, and pass the transaction to the network. There, the transaction is executed as if the user had sent it.
Multi-chain signatures: One account, multiple chains​
Currently, users and applications are siloed in different chains. This means that a user needs to create a new account for each chain they want to use. This is not only cumbersome for the user, but also for the developer who needs to maintain different codebases for each chain.
NEAR Protocol provides a multi-chain signature service that allows users to use their NEAR Account to sign transactions in other chains. This means that a user can use the same account to interact with Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, and NEAR.
Multi-chain signatures work by combining smart contracts that produce signatures, with indexers that listen for these signatures, and relayers that submit the transactions to other networks. This allows users to hold assets and use applications in any network, only needing to have a single NEAR account.
Chain Abstraction: The Holistic View​
The combination of these services allows to create a seamless user experience, in which users can use blockchain-based applications without realizing they are using a blockchain.
Users will simply login with an email, and a zero-fund account will be created for them. No seed phrases to remember, no private keys to safe keep, and no need to acquire funds.
Once having their account, apps can ask the user to create meta-transactions and send them to any relayer. The relayer will pass the transaction to the network, attaching NEAR to pay for the execution fees. The transaction will then be executed as if the user had sent it, since the relayer is only there to attach NEAR to the submission.
If the user wants to interact with other blockchains, they can use their account to interact with a multi-chain signature relayer, which will relay the transaction to the right network, covering GAS fees.
As an example, this would allow users to collect NFTs across different chains, without ever needing to explicitly create an account or acquire crypto. All with just a single email login.
