Introduction

Over the last few years, the Ethereum ecosystem has made tremendous strides in advancing the modular roadmap, a strategic plan aimed at enhancing scalability and efficiency through specialization and layering within the blockchain network. This has led to the development of an increasing number of chains, each specialized for distinct use cases. The cost of spinning up a new rollup has decreased significantly, blobs and data availability have made settling transactions even cheaper, and we now have L3s on top of L2s. It’s only a matter of time before we get to a world of 10,000 rollups and chains.

However, the modular future is at risk because of increasing fragmentation between chains.

Today, choosing modular means choosing pain. The average Ethereum user has to deal with a fragmented experience across chains. They need to manage multiple wallets, tokens, and assets. The experience is broken, to say the least, and it only gets exponentially worse as more chains go live.

The hard truth is, that modular experience needs to match Solana's experience. DEX trading bot volumes might be an indication of how much monolith UX matters for actual users.

We need connected abstracted chains

In the early days of the modular roadmap, a few chains emerged, so it was trivial to just connect them. But as we head towards 10,000+ chains, the connected chain approach is neither usable nor scalable. Every cross-chain protocol is fundamentally trying to replicate TCP/IP which is a low-level connectivity protocol, but in reality developers and users never use TCP/IP directly.

Moreover, over the last 2 years, we collaborated with 500+ teams and have learned that cross-chain is not enough for them. We have seen the pain points of fragmentation and we need to solve this problem better than just connecting chains.

The answer to fragmentation is not connected chains, but abstracted chains. Not cross-chain, but chain abstraction.

Chain Abstraction works and feels like a monolithic chain to users with the added benefits of composability and specialization that the modular roadmap provides. It's the best of both worlds.

Users don't need to worry about the underlying chains they are interacting with, whether there are 100 or 10,000 chains, they can just interact with applications. Users don't want or need to know about Gas tokens, RPC endpoints, or any other chain-specific details. They just want to use applications and perform desired actions like minting an NFT and depositing funds.

Introducing Socket Protocol

Socket Protocol is the first chain-abstraction protocol. Socket enables developers to compose with every protocol, user, and asset across 300+ chains and rollups through modular order flow auctions (MOFA)

What is Modular Order Flow Auction (MOFA)?

Fragmentation arises as various off-chain actors, each controlling different layers such as Data Availability (DA), sequencing, proving, relaying, and account abstraction, operate without the incentive or ability to coordinate and merge their efforts.

MOFA essentially creates an open marketplace for execution agents (Transmitters) and user-requests (signed authorizations i.e. user operations/user intents), where Transmitters compete to create the next chain abstracted bundle. Without the need to introduce any new chains or validators.

An Order Flow Auction is just like any other auction where the item being sold is the "right to execute" user requests.

MOFA is purpose-built for creating and fulfilling chain-abstracted bundles. It provides users with a higher level abstraction of the block space created across L1s, L2s, and L3s with a strong ability to control the outcome of execution. It unlocks the ability for the ecosystem to scale and modularise the ecosystem further all without losing composability.

Developers or users can incentivize transmitters to perform any activity on their behalf and abstract away any execution complexities. Just like how based-sequencing is about merging L2 sequencers with the L1 validators to enable censorship-resistant L2 users, MOFA takes it a step forward to enable chain abstraction.

MOFA enables and incentivizes various off-chain actors to function as Transmitters as it gives them an edge in the auction and the ability to earn more fees while users benefit from better execution and full chain abstraction. Here is a quick breakdown of what these will look like:

• Sequencers as transmitters will enable super-fast execution across L2s as they don't have to wait for finality

• Validators as Transmitters will enable the highest security standard via shared/mesh security

• Market-makers as Transmitters will enable the best pricing and super-tight execution for any value-related use cases built on top

• Solvers as Transmitters will enable best-in-class routing

• Keepers as Transmitters will enable conditional execution and scheduling e.g.: execute a swap when the cost is <10$ for execution

Depending on the user-request, different types of Transmitters will have an edge and the ability to win the auction.

No Chain, No Pain

Socket Protocol enables different actors to compete and collaborate while providing the best possible execution for users. These benefits are not just for users, but also the ecosystem as a whole:

• For Off-Chain Actors: MOFA creates a unified marketplace where different actors, each with unique capabilities and information, can compete and collaborate permissionlessly. This competition fosters innovation and efficiency, rewarding those who can offer the best execution and services. These actors could include Sequencers, Validators, Market-Makers, Solvers, and Keepers, each with unique superpowers and ecosystem roles.

• For Users: The direct benefit is a seamless and streamlined experience. Users enjoy fast and secure transactions without needing to navigate the complexities of interacting with multiple layers or chains. Full chain abstraction means that the underlying technical details are handled by MOFA, presenting a streamlined experience to the user.

• For Developers: It's finally possible to build chain-abstracted protocols end-to-end, not to manually compose together various modular layers, let the transmitters do it for you.

• For the Ecosystem: By reducing the gap between various off-chain actors, MOFA paves the way for a more integrated and cooperative blockchain ecosystem. This collaboration is essential for furthering the modular roadmap and ensuring that the benefits of specialization and layering are fully realized.

Conclusion

Socket Protocol is the first Chain Abstraction Protocol, offering a modular and adaptable framework for chain-agnostic applications. It simplifies interaction by abstracting chain complexities from users. As a core mechanism, Modular Order Flow Auction (MOFA) establishes a marketplace for transmitters and user requests, facilitating smooth cross-network interactions without the usual complexities.

We are excited to welcome the first cohort of developers to build Chain Abstracted Protocols with Socket Protocol and get support on development, fundraising, distribution, strategic collaborations, and much more. Apply here!

Lets make modular the new monolith, will you join us?

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Stay tuned for MOFA technical explainer!