Don't Abstract My Bera

They want communism for blockchains

Chain abstraction represents a kind of blockchain communism - an attempt to equalize fundamentally different systems by decree rather than merit. Beyond the technical specifications, each chain represents a unique combination of security guarantees, market dynamics, and community values that cannot be meaningfully abstracted away. The reality is that successful blockchains will differentiate themselves not through forced equivalence, but through building powerful brands that can expand beyond the traditional boundaries of crypto.

The False Promise of Chain Abstraction

Chain abstraction advocates have rallied behind a simple claim: "Users shouldn't need to know what chain they're on." However, this fundamentally misunderstands both the properties of blockchains and user behavior. The reality is that blockspace isn't fungible - each chain represents a distinct set of tradeoffs in security, performance, and economic design. When a Proof-of-Stake chain with a small validator set is treated as interchangeable with a battle-tested Proof-of-Work network, it ignores fundamental security differences. The same applies to liquidity: no abstraction layer can eliminate the fact that some chains have deep, efficient markets while others struggle with thin order books and high slippage. Even the applications themselves resist this artificial homogenization - DeFi protocols requiring atomic composability can't simply be transplanted across chains without losing critical functionality. Chain abstraction isn't just technically flawed; it's a solution in search of a problem. Users don't avoid certain chains because of complexity - they avoid them because of informed choices about where transactions should live. When a chain needs to hide its identity behind an abstraction layer, it's not solving a UX problem - it's trying to paper over more fundamental issues of trust, security, and market fit. If users loved your chain, you wouldn't need to hide it.

The Berachain Counterexample

Consider Berachain's approach - they're building a brand so strong that users actively want to know they're on Bera. Despite the chain not even being live, and most of these teams being around pre-any testnet, it underscores the fact that the chain, in some senses, is secondary to the brand. From Berabaddies to Puffpaw, they're creating an ecosystem where chain identity isn't a technical detail to be hidden, but a core part of the user experience that people celebrate.

When users see a cute bear logo or Bera-themed branding, it triggers an emotional response. They're not just interacting with another blockchain - they're participating in a culture and community they want to be part of. This is why chain abstraction advocates are so wrong: they're trying to strip away the very thing that makes successful chains successful.

Brand as Competitive Advantage

The push for chain abstraction is essentially asking successful chains to give up their competitive advantage. It's like asking Nike to remove their swoosh because "users shouldn't need to know what brand of shoes they're wearing." This misses the fundamental truth that brands create value by building trust, community, and emotional connection.

When users know they're on Berachain:

- They feel part of a distinct community

- They trust the security and reliability associated with the Bera brand

- They become brand ambassadors, organically growing the ecosystem

- They engage more deeply with Bera-native products and culture

The Diminishing Returns of Technical Differentiation

While technical capabilities remain important, they're increasingly becoming table stakes rather than decisive differentiators. Yes, chains can be upgraded to be faster, more decentralized, or more efficient – and they need to meet certain technical thresholds to be viable – but you can't simply fork a community or copy a brand. The technical moats that chains relied on in the early days are becoming standardized baseline requirements, while the cultural moats built by strong brands continue to deepen. We see this pattern play out consistently in traditional markets:

• iPhone dominates despite Android phones offering competitive specs at lower prices. Users rarely switch to iPhone for marginal technical advantages; they switch for the brand, the ecosystem's unified user experience, and the cultural cachet.

• Tesla maintains its mindshare leadership in electric vehicles despite competitors offering better technical specs. While baseline performance matters, people aren't buying Teslas primarily because they're technically superior—they're buying into a brand experience and a community.

• Charmin turned toilet paper - a commodity product requiring specific technical standards but minimal differentiation - into a household name through branding. Most consumers can't name a single competitor, despite those competitors meeting the same technical specifications.

While meeting technical requirements remains crucial, and early adopters might have chosen chains based on TPS or block time, future users will increasingly choose chains based on brand affinity and community strength. Technical features can be copied once they clear the necessary performance threshold; community culture cannot.

Your Chain's Stack Doesn't Matter (But Your Brand Does)

The ultimate irony of chain abstraction is that it cuts off the most valuable growth vector for blockchain projects: the ability to expand beyond crypto entirely. The real winners of crypto will be those that build such strong, appealing brands that they can excite regular people with non-blockchain related products, effectively giving a new meaning to “capturing orderflow.”

We're already seeing this play out with initiatives like Berabaddies, a women-focused community that emerged from within the Berachain ecosystem. What started as a crypto community and education initiative has evolved into something much more powerful: a brand and community that attracts women, both from other chains and completely outside of crypto. Why? Because they've created merchandise that people genuinely want to wear, events that people actually want to attend, and a community that feels welcoming rather than technical. When a woman gets a cute Berabaddies shirt or attends an event, she's not thinking about blockchain infrastructure - she's engaging with a brand that resonates with her.

This is precisely why chain abstraction misses the mark. Berabaddies succeeds not by hiding its connection to Berachain, but by leveraging that identity to create something bigger. The bears, the aesthetic, the community vibe - it all stems from Berachain's brand identity but expands far beyond blockchain.

Think about what this means in practice. A chain with a strong brand identity like Berachain could expand into:

- Merchandise that people actually want to wear (as Berabaddies has proven)

- Games and entertainment products that appeal to non-crypto audiences

- Community events that attract people for the culture, not just the technology

- Consumer products that leverage the brand's emotional appeal– h/t to Pudgy Penguins

Chain abstraction advocates would have you believe this kind of brand expansion is unnecessary. But they're missing the bigger picture: the most successful blockchain projects won't be known primarily for their blockchain at all. They'll be known for building brands so powerful that the underlying technology becomes secondary to the cultural impact.

Be a Brand, not a Backend

The future of blockchain adoption isn't about enforcing artificial equality through abstraction - it's about building chains with such strong brands and communities that they naturally expand beyond crypto's traditional boundaries. Strong chains build communities users want to be part of. Weak chains build walls to hide behind. Believe in something.