Polaris: a tangible example of blockchain abstraction

Last week, I moderated a panel at Multichain Day on modular infrastructure scaling during TOKEN2049 in Singapore. One of the takeaways from that conversation was that we needed to do more as an industry to abstract away infrastructure complexity.

The concept of abstraction is itself an abstract notion. “Users don’t care about which blockchain they’re on” is something I often hear, which only partly captures the idea. At its core, however, abstraction is about blending the benefits of different technologies into a single, smooth user experience that anyone can use without understanding the underlying complexity.

We benefit from abstraction whenever we use our phones, start our cars, or book a flight. Many of the world’s most influential companies are in the abstraction business. My favorite example is Visa and global payments. It’s nothing short of miraculous that we can tap our phones anywhere in the world, and within seconds, the transaction is processed across borders and currencies.

Sunny’s demo of Token Portal at Breakpoint provides a glimpse into the future of abstraction. It aggregates liquidity from different apps across a large number of chains. Sitting at the interface layer, users can connect a variety of wallets to the app. I think this is the correct approach, as wallets are closely tied to liquidity fragmented across networks.

The logical next step is for Polaris to act as a single signer across all chains. In fact, that’s precisely the vision.

The demo shows a cross-chain swap from $SOL to $TON. The app finds the best route for the trade, but this isn’t the most impressive part. Users without a wallet for their desired asset can use Polaris Vault, extending their existing wallet to sign transactions on unsupported networks.

It runs an MPC service—currently run by eight independent nodes, eventually by the Osmosis validator set. The service creates a threshold key controlled by the user’s wallet that somebody can use to sign across networks. For example, assets could be moved on the TON blockchain with Ethereum private keys on MetaMask.

Here, we see Osmosis’ vision for smart accounts come to life. Soon, users will be able to login with PassKey and access liquidity on Bitcoin, EVM chains, Solana, Cosmos, and so on. Smart Accounts was enabled in v25, and functionality slowly rolled out–one-click trading has been live for a few weeks.

This represents a significant leap forward in user experience—I’m eager to try out the early beta. We’re witnessing the early signs of true abstraction in crypto. Much like Visa simplifies payments by handling complex transactions behind the scenes, Polaris and tools like Token Portal are beginning to do the same for crypto.

The ultimate goal is to reach a point where users don’t need to think about chains, wallets, or gas fees—just like they don’t think about the mechanics of a credit card transaction. The real challenge now is accelerating these innovations and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. How well we can deliver this level of abstraction will define the next wave of crypto’s evolution.