An emerging chain claims to be building its protocol from the ground up with abstracted accounts, an important emerging programming method on Ethereum and other networks. Among other contributions, abstracted accounts seek to allow the management of “meta-accounts” or universal accounts, without distinction of cryptocurrencies or networks.
The chain, named Xion, is a base layer that is in the development phase and integrates the abstraction accounts “to simplify the entire technological stack” of its protocol. This network would not host traditional wallets, but rather “meta-accounts” or universal accounts.
At the moment, Xion is in testing phase public, and shows only a few abstraction functionalities. Although few, these functionalities serve as an early proof of concept of the abstraction accounts, a technology that many developers agree will be essential in the future for Ethereum, AVAX and other major networks.
According to users and developersthis technology will increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the world. Although still rudimentary, Xion allows us to observe real and existing applications of this emerging technology.
What does account abstraction allow?
Theoretically, networks with abstracted accounts allow the technical and functional complexities of using cryptocurrencies to be preserved, but removing them from the User Interface
(UI), that is, the visual and interactive surface of the interfaces that web3 users use on a daily basis.
This technology is inspired by Bitcoin and Ethereum technology, especially the blockchain, but does not use traditional concepts of walletsprivate keys, gas rates, decentralized applications, etc
According to the defenders of abstractionthese traditional technical complexities, when not in the background and in a state of abstraction, impair the understanding of the web3 for users who are not technologically inclined.
In other words, some developers consider account abstraction at the application design level to be the remedy for cryptocurrency adoption. Through it, developers can design simple Web3 applications, both to use and access them.
According to the Xion website,
Web2 didn’t break through to the mass market by expecting users to understand the complexities of HTTP and TCP/IP. It opened up to the world when it abstracted away technical complexities and replaced them with a fluid and intuitive user experience. Similarly, Web3 must maintain the self-sovereignty and censorship-resistance features of the underlying technology, while abstracting the complexities and friction for users interacting with Web3 at the interface layer.
Xion, chain that uses bead abstraction.
The main advantage of this abstraction is its practical ideal: articulating all a user’s accounts in a single control and management unit. A place where you can manage all your funds and use them, regardless of whether these are fragmented into different chains bothand subject to the incompatibilities between them.
Account abstraction also has some disadvantages: it is a complex technology to implement at scale and the mastery of this design philosophy is a long way from reaching web3 as a whole. Ecosystems run the risk of creating products in greater quantity and speed than they can use by abstracting them.
These accounts also have a subtlety to consider: being more programmable and flexible, they are also more vulnerable, the same as smart contracts. EOAs with private keys are more monolithic and have less risk of being compromised at the code level.
What are abstracted accounts like?
Specifically, the technologies used by this chain and that replace traditional design characteristics are the following:
- Modular accounts abstracted “at the protocol level.” Instead of using externally owned accounts (EOAs), like more popular private wallets, these abstracted accounts will have smart contract capabilities, similar to the contracts that EOAs interact with on other networks. This would give them greater flexibility and use cases.
- Transactions with facial biometrics and passwords. This is not new since there are platforms that allow you to send them with a fingerprint.
- Elimination of the concept of gas, used in Ethereum as the minimum unit of cost measurement for executing actions on the network.
For example: In contrast to modular accounts, Ethereum users have externally owned accounts (EOA, external owned accounts in English), controlled by a private key and a public key, which are used to sign basic transactions.
As reported by CriptoNoticias, Ethereum would implement the EIP-3074 standard after the Pectra update. External accounts may be delegated to Ethereum smart contracts, which may perform certain functions “within” the EOA, such as handling transaction payments.
Modular accounts, for their part, They do not interact with contracts, but are one. They follow another design principle, according to information on the Xion website: they not only allow payments and signatures, but also key recovery or two-factor authentication (2FA) methods.
The bottom line is that they have greater flexibility (scheduled payments, spending limits). since they work like smart contracts programmable.
From the user’s perspective, “chain abstraction allows you to easily use applications without understanding or even being aware of the underlying technological components that make them work”, says one blog post of the Xion project.
Testing Xion in practice
According to the project roadmap, Xion will be used differently than networks that use external own accounts (EOA). But in practice, Xion does not yet allow advanced account functionalities, as it is still in the testing phase.
The use of abstractions, however, begins to be outlined in certain details, such as in the generation of user profiles and cryptocurrency addresses.
Creating an account on Xion does not require generating a seed phrase, storing it, and creating a password. Instead, it works similar to creating an account on a traditional website, since email is used and certain third-party permissions are accepted during this process.
There is also no need to sign transactions or manage keys, since, at least at this stage of development, Xion does not work with traditional passwords. Access to the account is permitted by an email verification code. Part of the current technological protocol seems, therefore, hidden behind a layer of abstracted and simplified functions.
Once you proceed with the log in, Xion gives way to its platform, which currently contains few executable functions: missions to earn tokens, a referral system, statistics and some account functions such as associating social networks or notifications.
Xion does not enable actions that are essential on other networks, such as connecting a wallet to an application; instead, the owner’s address is automatically generated during account creation. This address (xion1pjandt6u3khekytnutestu27jf3pymkgjttr25yf2rxzn8xqwg7qvpouyz) is associated with a shorter user identifier (ID).
Xion is in an early development phase and does not yet show a full implementation of the emerging account technology. It does allow us to anticipate some technical and visual details of what many developers consider will be a technological milestone in Ethereum: abstracted accounts, a novel and still raw concept.