Ethereum Foundation’s near-term UX priority is interoperability

Ethereum Foundation researchers have highlighted that interoperability is the top near-term priority for Ethereum development.

The researchers wrote in a Friday blog that “we see interoperability, and related projects presented in this note, as the highest leverage opportunity” within the user experience domain in the next six to 12 months. The near-term strategy focuses on intent-based architecture and general message-passing.

In other words, the focus is on allowing users to express outcomes (or “intents”) while the network handles the low-level transactions, and upgrading the crosschain “pipes” (message-passing infrastructure) so that those intents execute smoothly across layer-1 and rollups. The Ethereum Foundation states that it will optimize for specific metrics, including time-to-inclusion, confirmation/finality, layer-2 settlement, and signatures per operation.

The researchers wrote that interoperability is a focus because the Ethereum ecosystem is divided into many layer-2 protocols that extend its functionality and scalability, while bringing “their own challenges, chief among them the pressures of fragmentation.” The post cites a significant pain point:

“At its simplified core, the key ingredients to accelerate interop boil down to unlocking fast crosschain message-passing and standardisation. Currently, message-passing is partially bottlenecked by slow settlement times.

Related:

The three streams of development

Ethereum Foundation developers decided to divide interoperability work into three streams: initialization, acceleration and finalization. The first one is focused on intent-based architecture and includes three projects: open intents framework, Ethereum interoperability layer and interoperability standards.

The open intents framework is a modular, lightweight intent-based stack facilitating the use of intents in Ethereum development. Production smart contracts are already live, audits are expected to be finalized in Q3 of this year, and crosschain validation is anticipated to occur in the final quarter.

The Ethereum interoperability layer is a trustless cross-L2 “transport” for prescriptive execution across layer-2 protocols, led by the Ethereum Request for Comments (ERC)-4337 team. ERC-4337 is Ethereum’s account abstraction standard that improves smart contract wallets.

Related:

New standards are coming

The last element in this development stream is the interoperability standards, which are tasked with ensuring a consistent crosschain user experience.

ERC-7828/7930 defines interoperable addresses, ERC-7811 standardizes asset consolidation so the same token across chains and wrappers can be treated as a single balance, and ERC-5792 formalizes multi-call flows. Lastly, ERC-7683 specifies a common intent format, and ERC-7786 provides a neutral messaging interface, allowing bridges and verification backends to be interchangeable.

The second stream focuses on increasing the speed at every layer, and the third stream focuses on the finishing touches. This last stream is currently exploring solutions to improve zero-knowledge proof support and improve layer-1 finality times.

Magazine: