Background:
Blockchain technology promises a new way to create and transfer economic value with appropriate network incentives. Blockchain networks span from Bitcoin’s simple currency to Ethereum’s smart contracts and beyond, each designed for specific purposes like Real-world tokenization, DePIN, DeFi, Social, Loyalty, etc.
Yet, blockchain’s innovation is not enough to attract mainstream adoption. If blockchain doesn’t compete with the everyday web2 experiences and their invisible technology, the industry will remain a niche and not be widely adopted. Despite $100B+ invested in blockchain companies, few real-world use cases see the light of day. It is estimated that only ~35Mn people are using web3 wallets, a far cry from the ~400Mn+ crypto owners and a tiny percentage of the ~5.5Bn web2 users.
For example, if Neeraj buys concert tickets seamlessly within one app, Sumit can immediately pay him back on a different app, irrespective of each other's blockchain technology stacks. Even such a simple user task is quite complex for developers to build while abstracting different blockchain stacks and standards. Payments is the most basic use case, but even for that, they need to have wallets, figure out which chain to transfer on, get each other wallet addresses, figure out gas fees, and sign the transaction 2-3 times before it goes through. And this is the most basic use case - it is infinitely more complex for other use cases. The technology needs to be grossly simplified for developers and end users.
We believe that most Web2 tech stacks will incorporate blockchain technology (in major or minor ways), and many users will come on-chain through them. This can only happen by making web3 technologies highly compatible with the existing web2 stack - bring web3 to users and developers and not require users and developers to come to web3.
Then what’s holding us back?
In the blockchain industry, teams are vigorously building seamless multi-chain applications. However, the modular evolution of blockchain technology has resulted in numerous isolated ecosystems, each governed by unique protocols and standards. While it has helped scalability, this fragmentation complicates interoperability, user experience, and scalability, presenting significant barriers to broader blockchain adoption.
Building such seamless applications is quite complex due to blockchain user actions’ asynchronous and multi-chain nature. To perform seamless user actions in a single task, developers must craft intricate contract logic that’s super secure and can operate across multiple chains, increasing programming and system control complexity.
Furthermore, the diversity of blockchain ecosystems, each governed by different protocols and standards, complicates interoperability and scalability. Developers are thus forced to navigate a maze of different environments, escalating development costs and time. At the same time, users must deal with various interfaces and transaction models across these platforms, which can be daunting and deter engagement and adoption. This fragmentation poses significant barriers to the widespread use of blockchain technology, highlighting the industry’s struggle to harmonize and build a cohesive user experience.
In summary…
Complicated User Experience: The variety of blockchain interfaces, transaction models, and security protocols complicates usability, discouraging widespread adoption.
Development Complexity: Developers must create multiple versions of apps for different blockchains or develop custom solutions for interoperability, increasing costs and limiting innovation. Low-level application problems are a mess to solve.
Inefficient Asset Management: Separate asset registries and liquidity pools on different blockchains create barriers to asset transfer and capital efficiency.
Security Inconsistencies: Varied security standards across blockchains introduce vulnerabilities, especially where different systems interact, challenging secure interoperability.
There are innovative solutions in progress…
We think disambiguating the problem might help solve the problem. Lets break down the potential solutions at the following levels.
Chain Level: A lot of innovation is focussed on de-fragmenting the modular ecosystems to streamline liquidity and asset assertion across chains. ZK proofs allow protocols to assert assets and liquidity across multiple blockchains, enhancing security and interoperability simultaneously. Several smart folks are building decentralized shared sequencers, proof aggregators, etc., as part of AggLayer, Astria, Espresso Systems, Radius, AltLayer, NodeKit, and Hyperbridging, which will help solve asset/liquidity consolidation at a chain level.
User Account Level: On the user account level, account abstraction has been solving a lot of problems. A unified interface across all chains simplifies user interactions by abstracting complexities like gas estimation/payment, transaction bundling, delegated transactions, etc., of blockchain interoperability. This solution slowly builds the user's freedom to manage assets across different ecosystems easily. This area has become even bigger and more evolved with the Chain Abstraction thesis, where users get unified smart accounts across all possible chains and can sign transactions seamlessly. Near, Xion, and Particle Network are doing a great job in the space.
Application Level: There are a lot of low-level complexities for application developers in developing multi-chain applications at a unified level. Even for a simple single-chain transaction, application builders must solve for multiple steps like nonce management, gas-fee estimation, failures and retries, asset assertions, data indexing, etc. Such management, when done across chain ecosystems and standards, becomes unmanageable. We see early Intent platforms attempting to solve but seem to be limited to in scope to routing/swap use cases.
User Experience Level: The user experience level focuses on ensuring accessibility and simplicity. The fact that many web3 apps are still on desktop clients is a major roadblock to true mass scale adoption. Single-click, mobile-native interfaces allow users to navigate web3 applications effortlessly, with the technical complexities hidden. While only some wallets and dapps are launching mobile apps, the experience still includes gas fees and multiple cumbersome user signatures.
What are we doing: Okto’s Orchestration Layer
Okto’s Orchestration Layer solves these above challenges with a holistic solution that works across all levels. By providing a holistic solution orchestrating transactions across multiple blockchains, abstracting complexities, and introducing standardized APIs and mobile SDKs, we help app developers build web2-like experiences for mass adoption. This enhances development efficiency, crucial for enterprise adoption and mainstream applications. Secured by an app chain, Okto offers massive permissionless, decentralized scalability, enabling expressiveness and catering to a wide array of use cases.
How will the Orchestration layer work?
The Okto Orchestration Layer (Okto) is middleware that addresses developer and end-user experiences. With access to millions of users, it also serves as an effective GTM strategy for web3 protocols. Read the detailed whitepaper here.
Okto is engineered around three fundamental components, each designed to streamline blockchain integration while enhancing user experiences.
Okto App Chain: The Okto app chain is the backbone of the entire solution, storing unified user accounts, transaction details, setup information, and protocols’ Blocs (aka ‘programmable scripts’) via a unified set of APIs. It does not hold user assets or liquidity; instead, it contains essential information necessary for transaction orchestration while securing user assets and liquidity on the destination chains. This approach ensures the trust and immutability for two critical external-facing sub-components: the Bloc Hub and unified APIs.
Bloc Hub: Web3 protocols can leverage the Bloc Hub to deploy Blocs, i.e., simplified programmable scripts that translate protocols on destination chains into Okto Layer with standardized primitives.
Unified APIs: App developers utilize a unified set of APIs to integrate web3 rails into their apps, building simple user experiences. These APIs significantly reduce development time cause they abstract a lot of low-level details, as described above in the application-level problems.
Unified Wallet Accounts: These accounts, secured via MPC & AVS nodes @ Eigen Layer, enable user delegation via ephemeral keys managed by the app chain’s ledger. Users can delegate wallets to sign transactions, enabling streamlined cross-chain interactions in ecosystems including BTC, EVM, Solana, Cosmos, EOA/UTXO, and MOVE-based systems like APTOS, and SUI.
Transaction Orchestration: It performs asynchronous multi-step transactions to abstract chain, gas, protocol, and transaction lifecycle complexities. It does the heavy lifting and performs the required sub-transactions for the intended user action. The user action required might require multiple approvals, transactions, data aggregation, and gas management across multiple chain ecosystems: all these sub-transactions are handled by the orchestrator and the Okto app chain to deliver the end user outcome.
The $OKTO token aligns network incentives for security and bootstrapping the application developer network. To bootstrap the network, an initial 7% of the token allocation is reserved for early adopters, allocated through Okto Points.
Example of using Okto’s Orchestration layer
A team of developers wants to create a GameFi application that merges gaming with blockchain technology, promising users a novel gaming experience. The game introduces a token-based economy where players earn tokens through gameplay, utilizing them for in-game purchases. Additionally, digital badges signify players’ accomplishments and standing within the game. The application leverages Blocs and the Okto's APIs, to streamline the integration of blockchain functionalities, significantly reducing development complexities. They can use social logins to create wallets, and Okto's Transaction Orchestrator further simplifies blockchain interactions, abstracting gas, chain, protocols; essentially making the technology invisible.
Next, when the app continue to enhance the game's offerings, it can leverage Okto's capabilities to introduce cross-chain in-game assets with the same APIs. For players, engaging with the application is seamless, facilitated by Okto's Unified Accounts and sign all transactions in a single click (powered by delegated access).
All of this development would take 90% less time via the Okto SDKs, vs building it with other solutions out there.
About Us
Okto has been incubated in the CoinDCX group. Okto platform already supports 15+ chains, 50+ protocols integrated natively and has scaled to 1.5M+ users on-chain. The CoinDCX group was last valued at $2.15B in 2022 having raised over $240M+ in funding. The CoinDCX group houses the CoinDCX CEX (the largest in India with 15M+ users), Okto ecosystem, and partner CEXs in the Middle East, and Africa. The company is backed by some of the most prominent web3 investors (Polychain, Block.one, Pantera, Coinbase, Draper Dragon, Cadenza, Kindred) and web2 investors (BCap, Steadview, Kingsway amongst others).
Change starts together. Help us out :)
Provide Feedback:
Email us at okto-whitepaper@coindcx.com with any suggestions or thoughts on our solution.
Follow us on Twitter, stay updated on the progress, and keep giving us feedback.
Partner with Us:
Collaborate with us to tackle everyday obstacles in your platform. You can write to us to participate in this journey with us.
Building apps? Use our SDKs to integrate blockchain seamlessly into your ecosystem. Build kickass experiences.
Spread the Word:
Check out our Points/Referral Program: Talk to your friends about our solution and earn points / potential future rewards.
Explore Okto Wallet:
Experience Orchestration at Work: Check out the Okto Wallet app to witness how our platform simplifies blockchain integration and enhances user experiences.
Earn Okto Points: Become part of future success with Okto Points. 20M points dropped to all on-chain wallets. Claim yours!