Improving the Blockchain User Experience with Arcana Network’s Mayur Relekar

As the blockchain industry continues to grow, simplifying processes and reducing barriers to entry are becoming increasingly critical for developers to onboard new users. We recently sat down with Arcana Network Co-Founder Mayur Relekar to discuss chain abstraction and Arcana’s innovative approach to simplifying the blockchain user experience.

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What major pain point is Arcana’s Chain Abstraction protocol aiming to solve for Web3 users?

If a user wants to use any app on any chain, they need to ensure that they hold the necessary funds to interact with that app, whether it is assets or gas fees, on the specific chain that the app is built on. This typically involves everything from waiting, context switching and performing an inane number of transactions… just to be able to use an app. This leads to poor user experience and fragmentation of the user’s liquidity.

With the advent of the modular chain thesis and the burgeoning ecosystem that comes with it, the aforementioned problem is only set to exacerbate. This is what we are looking to solve here at Arcana.

Could you please explain how the protocol improves capital efficiency and transaction speeds for users?

Lets say a user wants to use an app on some chain but does not hold any assets or gas tokens needed, on the specific chain, to interact with this app but holds them on some other chain(s).
“Our solution fronts the liquidity requirements of the user, near instantly, on that specific chain and reconciles with the user post facto. This, as you can see, dramatically improves the time to first interaction for the user.”

Mayur Relekar, Co-Founder of Arcana Network
Furthermore, a careful study of different chains and the bridging solutions that support these chains, reveals that for every $1 bridged into a particular chain, a very large % of this is bridged out. So the liquidity needs of the users already exist on the user’s target chain.

By netting the movement of funds in and out of all these chains and leveraging existing liquidity on target chains, we stand to gain significantly on the capital efficiency front which can ultimately lead to cheaper transactions for users.

What unique advantages does Arcana’s Chain Abstraction module offer over its competitors?

A sound chain abstraction solution has to account for significant gains in user experience, developer experience and capital efficiency. Otherwise, it simply fails to overcome existing inertia among crypto natives and be easy to use for new people entering the space.

Our approach not only aims to improve the user experience and capital efficiency as stated above but also aims to ensure that the integration requirements of developers make it extremely low footprint for them, leading to them focussing on their core value proposition and the general improvement in the quality of the apps in the space.

How does the new offering fit into Arcana’s broader mission and product ecosystem?

The Chain Abstraction protocol builds upon Arcana’s mission to make Web3 navigation effortless by abstracting its inherent complexities. It complements Arcana’s existing products like Arcana Auth (providing seamless social login for wallets), SendIt (allowing users to send crypto over email to anyone, even those who don’t have a wallet), and Gasless SDK (handling gas fees seamlessly), thereby providing a truly unified and frictionless experience.

Could you please tell us about the timeline for the rollout of the protocol?

We plan to roll out the Chain Abstraction protocol in multiple phases across Q3 and Q4 2024, with multiple test-nets and main-nets as we launch our Modular Layer 1. This phased approach will ensure a smooth and secure transition to the new protocol, allowing for rigorous audits, testing and gradual adoption by developers and users.

What are some key use cases that can be enabled or enhanced by Arcana’s unified cross-chain ecosystem?

Chain abstraction is a revolutionary concept in the crypto space and the long tail has the capacity to ultimately unlock mass adoption. Being able to afford users to spend assets, for liquidity or gas, is useful in literally all crypto use cases.

Specifically, one can imagine things like, seamless in-game asset transfers can be facilitated across gaming projects built on different chains. Users of DeFi apps like DEXs can also easily tap into liquidity across multiple chains. Similarly, NFT marketplaces can offer a vast multi-chain inventory without users having to bridge assets manually. The possibilities are basically endless.

How does Arcana approach its security and decentralization?

Security and decentralization lie at the heart of our overarching vision. To elaborate, the protocol is secured by staking $XAR on Arcana’s own modular AI-powered Layer 1 blockchain further enhanced by a novel Dual Staking mechanism leveraging a staking platform like EigenLayer.

The decentralized MPC network provides a trustless way to cosign transactions without custodial risks. The user’s self-custody of assets is never compromised during cross-chain operations.

Could you please explain how the Chain Abstraction protocol may/will impact the user onboarding experience for Web3 applications?

To this day, one of the biggest hurdles preventing mass adoption of Web3 technologies has been their poor user onboarding experience — often replete with complex wallet setups and asset management across chains.
“Our offering eliminates these friction points by allowing users to simply login with their existing Web2 credentials and have all their Web3 assets readily accessible without any chain hassles.”

Mayur Relekar, Co-founder of Arcana Network
This radically lowers the entry barrier, enabling Web3 applications to onboard the next billion users.

What are Arcana’s plans for future expansion and integration with other blockchain ecosystems?

While initially focused on EVM-compatible chains, Arcana has ambitions to expand its capabilities across other major blockchain ecosystems like Cosmos, Solana, etc.

How can developers and projects get involved with Arcana’s Chain Abstraction ecosystem?

We are committed to an open, collaborative approach, as a result of which we will shortly be launching a developer incentive program. Furthermore, we will also be hosting a number of hackathons and community initiatives to encourage broader adoption.

Projects can integrate the protocol with minimal effort and start tapping into Arcana’s growing user base from day one. Developers are also invited to contribute to Arcana’s open-source codebases and shape the future of user-centric Web3 infrastructure.