Particle Network - Making Chain Abstraction Mainstream: What You Need to Know
Chain Abstraction Coalition, Universal UX, $PARTI Token, & More
It’s clear that for teams who aren’t building on the application layer but rather building out infrastructure, that there is more of a market for easing the UX problem in crypto rather than building out incrementally more performant blockchains. Different teams are taking different approaches, but many are deemed a part of the chain abstraction movement. Chain abstraction simplifies the user experience by allowing them to interact with multiple blockchain products and assets without worrying about the complexities of multi-chain interactions. As opposed to creating more and more blockspace that still has little demand, this sector is more focused on building infrastructure that has tangible benefits to how consumers interact with crypto. There are numerous protocols building in this realm, looking to abstract away a lot of the pain points experienced. A key project pushing this narrative forward is Particle Network.
Particle Network is a part of this greater chain abstraction ecosystem, with a rich history in providing crypto abstraction services to users well before pivoting to the larger vision of a dedicated and modular L1 blockchain. Particle Network even introduced its own ‘Chain Abstraction Coalition’, featuring a host of massive L1s, rollups, and other blockchains committed to make multichain experiences more seamless.
Initially, Particle provided wallet abstraction services. This service enabled users to create smart contract wallets linked to Web2 social accounts, usable within dApp-embedded interfaces. Since its inception, Particle Network has seen significant adoption, with over 17 million wallet activations, 10 million user operations, and integration into more than 900 decentralized applications (dApps). Now, Particle is expanding past UI, aiming to implement its core technological features such as Universal Accounts, Universal Liquidity, and Universal Gas as a means to make onchain interactions structurally more simple.
Background on Particle Network
Particle Network is a Layer 1 (L1) blockchain designed to unify all chains, addressing the fragmentation of users and liquidity across different blockchain networks. As mentioned above, the network uses features such as Universal Accounts, Universal Liquidity, and Universal Gas, which simplify the user experience across blockchain ecosystems, helping to achieve the chain abstraction vision.
Universal Accounts revolutionizes how users interact across the diverse landscape of the Web3 ecosystem. These accounts provide a single, consolidated interface for users, merging numerous blockchain interactions into one seamless experience. In the past couple of years more users have become open-minded and more chain agnostic, to the point of this being the norm among many users. But while demand has shifted from the more siloed user bases of blockchains past, actual use remains segmented. Particle Network makes blockchain-agnosticism possible. Users of Universal Accounts benefit from having one address and one balance that can be used across all supported blockchains, whether EVM-based or otherwise. This addresses the common pain point in Web3 where users must manage multiple addresses and balances across different networks.
Universal Accounts are made possible by another one of Particle’s offerings, Universal Liquidity. The functionality of Universal Liquidity enables seamless and atomic interaction across different blockchain networks, fundamentally supporting the concept of Universal Accounts. Universal Liquidity automatically handles the execution of atomic cross-chain transactions. This technology pools funds from a user’s balance across various chains to fulfill transaction requirements seamlessly. Particle Network acts as the settlement layer for these transactions, with its globally distributed network of Modular Nodes managing the accounts and coordinating cross-chain interactions. These nodes play a crucial role in bundling, relaying, and verifying transactions across the network.
This functionality is key to unifying balances and simplifying transactions across the diverse landscape of the Web3 ecosystem. In scenarios where transactions are executed on chains where the user does not have funds, Universal Liquidity automatically pulls the required liquidity from the user’s balance on other chains. Basically, this is what enables users to have a single crosschain balance, and not have to worry about segmented portfolios across chains. This leads us to the third important component of Particle Network, Universal Gas.
Universal Gas does what one might expect; it is specifically designed to address the complexities associated with gas payments in a fragmented blockchain ecosystem. With the concept of ‘Gas Abstraction’, users can pay transaction fees using any token from any chain (paying gas on Base with $USDC from Arbitrum), irrespective of the network on which the transaction is executed. This is obviously more convenient than the traditional gas model used by most blockchains, where transactions on require fees to be paid in the native token of that network. Together, Universal Accounts, Universal Liquidity, and Universal Gas power chain abstraction by enabling users to maintain a single address and balance across every chain and to pay for transaction fees in any token. This is possible through the exclusive role of the Particle L1 to coordinate the Universal Accounts. Additionally, the protocol’s L1 solution leverages key modular nodes to secure the network and manage its decentralized operations, including transaction validation and data availability.
Particle Network approaches its fundamental design distinctively and creatively. From a blockchain design standpoint, Particle Network’s technology platform is built on an L1 architecture, utilizing the Cosmos SDK for intrinsic modularity. This architecture allows it to retain sovereignty while outsourcing critical functions such as validation and data availability to specialized ecosystem actors.
When it comes to Particle’s business model, similar to other L1s, transaction fees lie at the core of the protocol’s revenue streams. Every transaction processed on the network, whether it involves cross-chain interactions, smart contract executions, or simple transfers, incurs a fee. These fees are structured to cover the computational and operational costs of maintaining the network (nodes), ensuring its efficiency and scalability.
So far, we’ve given you a comprehensive overview of Particle Network. One last point to mention is that Particle Networks’ PARTI token is confirmed and the TGE is expected sometime after the launch of the mainnet. Within Particle Network, the $PARTI token will have several uses, such as covering transaction costs, taking part in governance choices, and staking for network security. It will serve as the ecosystem’s main means of value and exchange, similar to most L1 coins/tokens, though a key differentiation lies in the fact that PARTI is consumed in every transaction that occurs by a Universal Account as part of the settlement process. It will also be used in Particle Network’s Dual Staking mechanism.
With Dual Staking, users will be able to stake the native $PARTI tokens or $BTC, which not only secures the network but also generates staking rewards, in a process powered by Babylon. These rewards are derived from the transaction fees collected by the network and possibly from new token issuances, depending on the network’s future governance decisions. This mechanism incentivizes participation and investment in the network, boosting its security and decentralization while providing a return to the stakeholders. There are more details regarding PARTI tokenomics, and how the dual staking mechanism will work that we will be sure to cover. To date, Particle Network has raised $25M in total, including a recently disclosed investment from Binance Labs.
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