{"id":"nCWcfD3Z2aQ","title":"Yashaswi Rao, Okto","description":"Chain Abstraction Day at EthCC 2024 in Brussels on July 10th, bringing together NEAR and Agoric for our third installment in the year-long series.\n\nYashaswi Rao, Okto dives into the challenges and solutions for creating successful Web3 applications with a focus on chain abstraction. Discover how Okto is simplifying the development process, making decentralized apps more accessible and user-friendly, and driving the next wave of blockchain innovation.\n\nTakeaways:\n• Focus on Applications: The blockchain industry needs to prioritize building high-quality applications that provide real value to users rather than focusing solely on infrastructure and perfect decentralization.\n• Challenges in Web3 Development: Building Web3 applications is difficult due to fragmentation, complexity, a lack of developers, and insufficient funding for consumer apps.\n• Chain Abstraction as a Solution: Chain abstraction can bridge the gap, allowing developers to create applications without worrying about underlying blockchain complexities, similar to how HTTP works for web development.\n• Okto's Approach: Okto provides a middleware chain that simplifies Web3 app development with pre-built intents and plugins, reducing the steps needed to perform transactions and improving user experience.\n• Incentive Structures: Okto's token manages incentives by distributing transaction fees to creators of intents, destination chains, solvers, and users, ensuring a fair and sustainable ecosystem.\n\nTimestamps:\n0:00 - Introduction\nIntroduction to the topic of chain abstraction and its importance.\n0:20 - The Importance of Great Applications\nDiscussion on the need for building valuable applications in the Web3 space.\n0:52 - Challenges in Building Web3 Apps\nOverview of the barriers to entry for Web3 app development.\n1:26 - Web2 vs. Web3 Example (Amazon)\nComparison of building an application like Amazon in Web2 vs. Web3.\n2:19 - Utilizing Existing Protocols\nEncouragement to start using existing protocols to build decentralized applications.\n2:56 - The Goal of Chain Abstraction\nExplanation of chain abstraction and its benefits for developers.\n3:32 - Okto's Role and Offerings\nIntroduction to Okto's middleware chain and its features for developers.\n4:31 - Live Applications and User Experience\nDescription of Okto's current live applications and the seamless user experience they offer.\n5:49 - Incentive Structures and Ecosystem\nHow Okto's token and incentive structures support a sustainable ecosystem.\n6:36 - Network Architecture\nOverview of Okto's network architecture and how it supports decentralized app development.\n7:00 - Closing Remarks\nInvitation to learn more about Okto and engage with the team.\n\nJoin NEAR's community:\nWebsite: https://near.org/\nNEAR AI: https://near.ai/\nTwitter:   / nearprotocol  \nBlog: https://near.org/blog/\nMedium:   / nearprotocol  \nGitHub: https://github.com/near \nDev Docs: https://docs.near.org/\n#NEAR #nearprotocol #NEARAI","channel_name":"NEAR Protocol","published_at":"2024-07-23T00:00:00.000Z","thumbnail_url":"https://img.youtube.com/vi/nCWcfD3Z2aQ/hqdefault.jpg","transcript_text":"hey everybody um thanks for staying so late I know it's a long day and um where can I see okay I can see it um I think a lot has been said about chain abstraction for the whole day I think there's multiple pieces of it layers of it everything else in between and uh what I really care about and we are talk to really care about is building good apps because that's where I think value generation actually is and that's really what we intend to just talk about what what have we done in the industry and where have we got I think we hit incentive design pmf smart contract pmf we've sort of hitting scalability and modularity but what we're missing is great applications I think chain abstraction is the bridge in between what we do but fundamentally we have to work towards great applications like uh IIA was talking earlier we need a large mindset mindset shift as well uh in this ecosystem we talk a lot about Perfect Solutions perfect decentralization provability scalability and everything else but we haven't achieved product Market fit at a consumer level for a lot of applications yet and that's really what we need to do just let's build applications that work um self sof in everyday apps if you see a typical iPhone or a typical phone of any anybody on the street you wouldn't find a web three application or a decentralized application that's the real problem why because building web3 apps is hard there are lots of barriers to entry um I mean I'm not going to talk about everything but there's fragmentation it's complex to build there are very few devs so there's very few devs to teach other devs and while there Lego blocks code they're not easily accessible for everybody obviously incentives and funding is another problem so I'm going to take a quick example of something like Amazon and see how difficult is it to build today this is Amazon and web 2 simple Marketplace a customer experience is composed of these a seller experience is composed of these Amazon connects to both of them now if you do this the same thing in web 3 this is what it will look like there's an ad protocol there's knowledge protocol there's indexing there's routing auctions there's payment settlements and there's Network building a very deep and like philosophy right and you see a lot of these are already existing today like we have most of these protocols existing in some form or the other in some chain or the other but all of those exist what we are not doing is not using them anywhere yet so what I'm generally saying is let's start using these and start building applications let's start utilizing all the tech that we build it it might not be the perfect Tech out there it might not be completely decentralized somebody just said coinbase is bigger than lot of Dex is out there so it doesn't have to be perfect but let's start building value for users by building decentralized applications we don't need to build in the same chain ecosystem either and that's the whole point about chain abstraction where the minute an appd doesn't care about which chain they're building on I think we've received uh I think we have achieved chain after ction app developers will not care about which chain the building on it's just a security red green yellow should do very similar to sttp stps app developers might not write net new contracts as well they can just leverage existing Lego blocks they will reuse existing Lego blocks and with AI and everything else it become much much simpler right this is what we think appd should really focus on they should build on uh they should build good experiences and they should build their own business logic like building an Amazon takes business logic and not net new infra don't focus on creating wallets creating payloads recreating smart contracts and everything else there might be some applications which might need net new smart contracts but we expect that to be few there is a problem in incentive design anyway where more infr projects are getting funded than consumer projects because simply put building consumer apps is hard GTM for b2c is hard but that's really where the value is what are we doing at octo we are a middleware chain or a chain abstraction layer what we are building is sort of intents or what we call blocks they are plugins written in JavaScript which are basically recipes or workflows of intents similar to what we've spoken about the whole day and we give these to app developers in simple web2 apis so similar to again a bunch of what we have spoken about think of a web2 app doing payments they hit check balance and they hit debit these are two apis in web 3 these are 20 steps if you if they're done on one chain if there are 50 steps if done multiple chains we'll bring it back to two steps sorry um where are we today we are actually everything that we've spoken about today is live on the Octo app right now you can download it and try it out so everything in production we have a chain abstracted Futures experience which pulls liquidity from multiple places we have a chain extracted swap experience and we have a chain extracted Reward Center what that means is you won't see chains anywhere in the whole experience it's it is a self- custody wallet you won't see chains it is a self- custody wallet you won't see gas you won't see which protocol you're using you're basically just using the end use case we have about 3 million users on this application and we're also giving this application as an SDK for other builders all of these things are available right out of the box today so if you for example need to take a reputation and somebody wants to build a game reputation or social reputation or I won't steal your money reputation that's available as a plug-in today the Octor token manages incentive problems that we spoken about earlier it earns from transaction fee that the app generates it pays this transaction fee or distributes the transaction fee into people who created intents people the destination chain wherever that goes pay the solvers and pays users and apps for bootstrapping the network architecture what we've built but it's similar to what we've spoken about there is a solver Network there's a wallet Network there are indexers and their final chains that we actually execute the transaction on the Octo chain which is an app chain is a permission layer so it almost like policy management and everything else and that's sort of what we do to read up more and to know more about us talk to us check out the white p we're available we at the event the whole week thank you","transcript_synced_at":"2026-11-03T05:42:22.040Z","segments":[{"start_seconds":9,"text":"hey everybody um thanks for staying so late I know it's a long day and um where can I see okay I can see","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=9s"},{"start_seconds":17,"text":"it um I think a lot has been said about chain abstraction for the whole day I think there's multiple pieces of it","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=17s"},{"start_seconds":24,"text":"layers of it everything else in between and uh what I really care about and we are talk to really care about is","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=24s"},{"start_seconds":31,"text":"building good apps because that's where I think value generation actually is and that's really what we intend to just talk","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=31s"},{"start_seconds":40,"text":"about what what have we done in the industry and where have we got I think we hit incentive design pmf smart contract pmf we've sort of hitting","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=40s"},{"start_seconds":49,"text":"scalability and modularity but what we're missing is great applications I think chain abstraction is the bridge in between what we do but fundamentally we","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=49s"},{"start_seconds":57,"text":"have to work towards great applications like uh IIA was talking earlier we need","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=57s"},{"start_seconds":64,"text":"a large mindset mindset shift as well uh in this ecosystem we talk a lot about Perfect Solutions perfect decentralization provability scalability","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=64s"},{"start_seconds":73,"text":"and everything else but we haven't achieved product Market fit at a consumer level for a lot of applications yet and that's really what we need to do","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=73s"},{"start_seconds":81,"text":"just let's build applications that work um self sof in everyday apps if you see a typical iPhone or a typical phone of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=81s"},{"start_seconds":89,"text":"any anybody on the street you wouldn't find a web three application or a decentralized application that's the real","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=89s"},{"start_seconds":96,"text":"problem why because building web3 apps is hard there are lots of barriers to entry um I mean I'm not going to talk","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=96s"},{"start_seconds":104,"text":"about everything but there's fragmentation it's complex to build there are very few devs so there's very few devs to teach other devs and while","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=104s"},{"start_seconds":113,"text":"there Lego blocks code they're not easily accessible for everybody obviously incentives and funding is another problem so I'm going","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=113s"},{"start_seconds":121,"text":"to take a quick example of something like Amazon and see how difficult is it to build today this is Amazon and web 2","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=121s"},{"start_seconds":130,"text":"simple Marketplace a customer experience is composed of these a seller experience is composed of these Amazon connects to both of them now if you do this the same","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=130s"},{"start_seconds":139,"text":"thing in web 3 this is what it will look like there's an ad protocol there's knowledge protocol there's indexing there's routing auctions there's payment","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=139s"},{"start_seconds":146,"text":"settlements and there's Network building a very deep and like philosophy right and you see a lot of these are already existing","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=146s"},{"start_seconds":155,"text":"today like we have most of these protocols existing in some form or the other in some chain or the other but all","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=155s"},{"start_seconds":163,"text":"of those exist what we are not doing is not using them anywhere yet so what I'm","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=163s"},{"start_seconds":170,"text":"generally saying is let's start using these and start building applications let's start utilizing all the tech that","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=170s"},{"start_seconds":179,"text":"we build it it might not be the perfect Tech out there it might not be completely decentralized somebody just said coinbase is bigger than lot of Dex","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=179s"},{"start_seconds":187,"text":"is out there so it doesn't have to be perfect but let's start building value for users by building decentralized","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=187s"},{"start_seconds":195,"text":"applications we don't need to build in the same chain ecosystem either and that's the whole point about chain abstraction where the minute an appd","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=195s"},{"start_seconds":204,"text":"doesn't care about which chain they're building on I think we've received uh I think we have achieved chain after ction app developers will not care about which","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=204s"},{"start_seconds":212,"text":"chain the building on it's just a security red green yellow should do very similar to sttp stps app developers","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=212s"},{"start_seconds":220,"text":"might not write net new contracts as well they can just leverage existing Lego blocks they will reuse existing Lego blocks and with AI and everything","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=220s"},{"start_seconds":229,"text":"else it become much much simpler right this is what we think appd should really focus on they should build on uh they should build good experiences and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=229s"},{"start_seconds":238,"text":"they should build their own business logic like building an Amazon takes business logic and not net new infra","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=238s"},{"start_seconds":245,"text":"don't focus on creating wallets creating payloads recreating smart contracts and everything else there might be some","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=245s"},{"start_seconds":252,"text":"applications which might need net new smart contracts but we expect that to be few there is a problem in incentive","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=252s"},{"start_seconds":259,"text":"design anyway where more infr projects are getting funded than consumer projects because simply put building","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=259s"},{"start_seconds":266,"text":"consumer apps is hard GTM for b2c is hard but that's really where the value is what are we doing at octo we are a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=266s"},{"start_seconds":275,"text":"middleware chain or a chain abstraction layer what we are building is sort of intents or what we call blocks they are","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=275s"},{"start_seconds":282,"text":"plugins written in JavaScript which are basically recipes or workflows of intents similar to what we've spoken about the whole day and we give these to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=282s"},{"start_seconds":291,"text":"app developers in simple web2 apis so similar to again a bunch of what we have spoken about think of a web2 app doing","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=291s"},{"start_seconds":299,"text":"payments they hit check balance and they hit debit these are two apis in web 3 these are 20 steps if you if they're done on one chain if there are 50 steps","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=299s"},{"start_seconds":307,"text":"if done multiple chains we'll bring it back to two steps","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=307s"},{"start_seconds":314,"text":"sorry um where are we today we are actually everything that we've spoken about today is live on the Octo app right now you can download it and try it","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=314s"},{"start_seconds":323,"text":"out so everything in production we have a chain abstracted Futures experience which pulls liquidity from multiple places we have a chain extracted swap","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=323s"},{"start_seconds":331,"text":"experience and we have a chain extracted Reward Center what that means is you won't see chains anywhere in the whole experience it's it is a self- custody","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=331s"},{"start_seconds":340,"text":"wallet you won't see chains it is a self- custody wallet you won't see gas you won't see which protocol you're using you're basically just using the end use case we have about 3 million","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=340s"},{"start_seconds":349,"text":"users on this application and we're also giving this application as an SDK for other builders all of these things are","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=349s"},{"start_seconds":357,"text":"available right out of the box today so if you for example need to take a reputation and somebody wants to build a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=357s"},{"start_seconds":365,"text":"game reputation or social reputation or I won't steal your money reputation that's available as a plug-in","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=365s"},{"start_seconds":372,"text":"today the Octor token manages incentive problems that we spoken about earlier it earns from transaction fee that the app","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=372s"},{"start_seconds":380,"text":"generates it pays this transaction fee or distributes the transaction fee into people who created intents people the destination chain wherever that goes pay","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=380s"},{"start_seconds":388,"text":"the solvers and pays users and apps for bootstrapping the network architecture what we've built","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=388s"},{"start_seconds":396,"text":"but it's similar to what we've spoken about there is a solver Network there's a wallet Network there are indexers and their final chains that we actually","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=396s"},{"start_seconds":404,"text":"execute the transaction on the Octo chain which is an app chain is a permission layer so it almost like policy management and everything else","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=404s"},{"start_seconds":412,"text":"and that's sort of what we do to read up more and to know more about us talk to us check out the white p","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=412s"},{"start_seconds":420,"text":"we're available we at the event the whole week thank you","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ&t=420s"}],"youtube_url":"https://youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcfD3Z2aQ","url":"https://near-pedia.xyz/videos/nCWcfD3Z2aQ"}