Kendall Cole is the founder of Proximity Labs, a research and development firm, and serves as the Head of Product at NEAR Protocol. Previously, he was a Product Manager at Kauri and ConsenSys, roles that highlight his extensive experience in the blockchain industry.
Twitter/X: @kendaIIc
LinkedIn: Kendall Cole
Website: Proximity Labs
Altan, Joe, and Kendall discuss Chain Signatures, a distributed MPC network that allows NEAR smart contracts or accounts to sign transactions for any blockchain. They explore keeping NEAR users within the NEAR context while interacting with other chains, highlighting NEAR's smart accounts and scalability for chain abstraction. They detail the technical flow, cost implications, and user experience of using Chain Signatures, which abstracts different blockchains to simplify user interactions. While some transactions require settlement times, intermediate steps can be settled in near real-time, enabling seamless applications that integrate multiple blockchains, from improving Bitcoin lending user experiences to creating new applications leveraging chain signatures.
Takeaways
• Chain Signatures is a distributed MPC network that enables NEAR smart contracts or accounts to sign transactions for any blockchain, unlocking a new design space for interoperability.
• The technical flow of using Chain Signatures involves a smart contract that listens to signature requests and an operator network that computes the signatures.
• The cost of using Chain Signatures depends on the gas costs of the destination chain, but NEAR's low gas costs and ability to offload interactions can help reduce costs.
• Chain Signatures offers the opportunity for developers to create user experiences that are less transactional and more seamless, abstracting away the need for constant transaction signing.
Timestamps:
01:25 Enabling Interoperability with Chain Signatures
02:50 Keeping Users within the NEAR Ecosystem
08:04 NEAR's Unique Features for Chain Abstraction
15:37 Technical Flow of Requesting and Signing Transactions
21:20 Cost Implications of Using Chain Signatures
23:17 Community Governance of Chain Signatures
24:05 Abstracting the Complexity of Interacting with Multiple Blockchains
26:30 Improving the Trading Experience for Bitcoin-Based Assets
28:26 Creating a Retail-Friendly Bitcoin Lending Protocol
30:51 Building Applications that Compose Multiple Different Blockchains
37:45 Supporting the Launch of Chain Signatures
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