# Chain abstraction? But I want to know where my tokens are by Konrad Urban | Devcon SEA

- Speakers: [Konrad Urban](https://streameth.org/speakers/konrad-urban)
- Channel: [Devcon](https://streameth.org/devcon)
- Date: 2025-10-07
- Duration: 09:29
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-J_VTceUdfgs
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_VTceUdfgs

## Description

As a space, we face a big problem: how should we think about where assets live. Is Eth different from oEth or aEth. Does it matter where Circle prints your USDC? Should chains delegated to the kind of infra that Google Cloud or AWS is today? Clearly, the fragmentations of USDC/USDT/xDAI and then all the L2s creates horrible UX. However, the underlying assets are different things and the chains they live on have completely different security guarantees. Let's fix this!

Speaker(s): Konrad Urban
Skill level: Intermediate
Track: Usability
Keywords: Cross-L2, UI/UX, Accessibility, chain, abstraction

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Devcon SEA was held in Bangkok, Thailand on Nov 12 - Nov 15, 2024.
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## Transcript

[Music] hello hi this is not going to be nice um I'm here to tell you that it will be your fault if things go wrong and I will explain that um in Greater detail I think our it's such a nice segue to have um rina's talk earlier because exactly what I want to talk about is the responsibility you have when you abstract chains and when you curate the infrastructure that you have so about me um I'm the peanut brain at peanut protocol and we've been doing chain abstraction when we still called it chain agnostic payments so we do we do chain abstracted payments you can do a payment let's say in 10 usdt on optimism and someone can receive 10 USD on polygon uh we don't use um intense we don't use fancy solvers we use Simple Bridges um to make that happen we've been around for a while now um so yeah um for generalized chain abstraction I think it's important to ask like why why should I even care where my tokens live so I think I personally care because the risks are very different to something like a traditional centralized financial institution when you think about a bank you have legal guarantees and you have have bailouts um that secure your funds and you don't need to worry about the exact Capital the underlying Capital um of the bank you can be pretty sure that you are able to withdraw um your funds in any mature economy in crypto well we don't have legal documents to back us up we have Smart contracts um so I want to talk through two dilemas one is simple ux and like very stripped down ux and exposing all of the risks so L2 beat when Bridge beat um I think I think it's um yeah uh a slide that I stole uh from radina that I briefly want to talk about um look at all of the risks that are um involved in such a simple thing as just having usdc on orderly um well getting usdc on orderly you not only have all the circle risk then you get like the the mantle risk get the canonical brisk G layer zero and so on that's crazy um so let's make the pizza green um and let's talk through some ways we can communicate these risks to end users so we have this first generation of chain first two eyes which emphasize the chain um and then and then the acids so that's like metamask where you have to pick your chain and then it only shows the acids on that specific chain then we have acid first UI so Rabbi I think has a is a really nice example where um it shows you the assets it will even show you um the the uh uh um Network um um as separate entities but it will show the asset first it will show the the network as a small thing in the back um well how should we do it as as product people um what should a product person do should they just like slap thousands of warnings everywhere uh surely that's not a good way to onboard um users it gets even worse when we abstract everything and we just have like a final balance and we just assume that everything's going to Route it everywhere right yet we have to expose um these things somehow um especially that with chain abstraction essentially what happens I would argue is that the fat protocal thesis kind of stops existing and the middleware thesis plus the app thesis become much broader um which means that you much much more responsible for curating um the infrastructure and the middleware you're using and what you're exposing to the end user so there is this phenomenon I think that we'll see um with mass onboarding and very simple apps where we'll have a race to the bottom in terms of not showing these risks right like as a business especially as a startup I want to move fast and break things and yeah I'm it is a disadvantage is it is objectively a business disadvantage to be like warning this thing is at risk warning that thing is at risk um which means that it's even more important to internally as a product team to vet the infrastructure that you're using and consult um uh tools and and people like L2 beat and uh maybe Bridge beat in this in the future um one thing that I wanted to emphas is that the market doesn't seem to price these risks um strongly like one eth on some random L2 is going to be exactly the same dollar value of eth on Main net um so it seems that um the market just doesn't doesn't price these maybe because we haven't seen a catastrophic risk yet uh a catastrophic failure yet so yeah uh if you ever want to chat about interoperability for payments uh DM me I will send you money um these are my uh details thank you Conrad and you can already talk to Conrad right now if you ask a question incredible right you can ask your uh question by raising your hand and I'll get the box to you yes oh that's far maybe it's easier you do from there no no it's okay you can you can you can stay okay I like standing up anyway so I understand about the counterparty risk of the bridge uh introducing you know different risk to the bridge asset but in the far future if we have soft smart contract security and all that with like ZK or whatever people are using do you foresee it being at risk parity across all the chain and therefore chain abstraction is viable I think when we say chain abstraction it's still basket of chains that you as a um prodject Creator uh curate right so they I I think maybe there will be a world where all this Tech will go down to zero it will it's going to go it's going to be very very simple to have like really really really good um tech there um that where we don't need to do all these um audits essentially um but uh yeah it's it's up to you to curate I think that's my my main argument yeah yeah all right we have another question in the far future yeah sorry sorry for someone that's new into the space me here oh for someone that's new into the space and building doesn't have like a plor of knowledge of existing third party risk that exists with Bridges like how do you actually assess and price in that risk when building where's the best place to do that yeah really really good question so El is a great place um I think my main message would be again it's you as the product owner or or even like co-founders um who have to make that decision about curation if you want to hide the risks like you you're faced with this dilemma of like either you expose the risk and you fair to the user and say well it's going to be your own fault you're you're responsible which creates wor UI or um you curate it for them and then um don't get surprised if uh people will spam your support email if they lose their funds and they will hunt you down cool we have time for another question anyone wants to ask one maybe you do maybe don't yes you do fantastic get ready to catch and go good catch and do say if that's going to create the barrier of entry for like new l2s to enter because like the r there's a re in a new play I think it's the opposite so I think with as with any research project um there's a first mve disadvantage because you're pouring in millions and millions into the biggest brains of the industry to design a new infrastructure and then anyone else can just Fork that or build a very similar copy um yeah whilst inheriting all of the niceties of the first mover but it wouldn't apply for if they are using a new technology for example yeah sure if you're building something new then you need to convince everyone that it's good Tech and you need to really pitch yourself I think that's also a message to all infra projects like pitch that pitch to apps that you are the the best option the secure option for your users because app developers have this responsibility um towards the end users of curation yeah