The Multichain Future
Innovation is an intimate understanding that the ideas of yesterday grow stale. One could say it is recognizing a disparity between first principles and that which already does or does not exist. That is what opportunity is.
The opportunity to act on problems in a way that no one has.
In my opinion, 2023 is revealing the beginning of a new era of innovation.
The actualization of a Multichain future.
Not as a means of handwaiving, but as a tangible set of asynchronous state machines that users can interact across seamlessly. As UI/UX friction decreases, the offerings are no longer about what you can offer locally but instead what you can tap into globally.
Whereas institutions like Apple are focused on walled garden protection of competitive moat, Web3 flips this models. Apps will be focused on connecting users to the maximal number of markets and products. The exception to this rule is liquidity, which trends towards centralization and optionality.
These are my hypotheses:
(1) Apps that only offer a single chain experience will fail.
(2) Layer-1s that fail to interface with the larger Multichain communication protocol universe will fail.
(3) Interchain portfolios and asset management platforms will become the expectation.
(4) Multichain interactions ultimately result in more fees, some users will optimize for less fees and others will optimize for convenience. Apps will need to choose what is emphasized on this front.
(5) Security becomes increasingly important as additional layers of abstraction are interwoven between chains (LSD, Modularity, ICS). Security is the greatest moat any app or L1 can have for the forseeeable future.
(6) MEV will eventually disappear. Instead, first-in-line arbitrage will reign supreme.
(7) The goal of ZKs ultimately are to improve privacy or convenience. People seem to lose track that the end user experience is where that actually manifests as something meaningful. I believe app development is harder than first meets the eye on the ZK stack.
(8) Privacy is key to unlocking institutional adoption. It is also (perhaps ironically) the key to unlocking powerful on-chain compliance frameworks.
(9) Governance is the single greatest long term barrier of a successful project. This is because governance ultimately allocates resources.
The Multichain universe will not be novel forever. And I will be watching those that have peered behind the veil to see where things are headed.
One thing is for sure, Shade Protocol will embrace a multichain future.
-Carter W.
