TL;DR
This article introduces Arc, a novel ecosystem that removes blockchain complexity for users, developers, and businesses. Arc innovative features were designed to accelerate blockchain’s mass adoption.
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Motivation
Decentralized blockchain technology provides safe, transparent, and tamper-proof transactions without the use of middlemen. It has several advantages, particularly in the financial sector, including better accountability, security, and transparency. Despite these benefits, blockchain technology still faces several challenges to widespread adoption. When it comes to user activity, it is almost 60 times less than that of social media. In the financial industry, it accounts for a very small fraction of the total financial market capitalization and financial transactions.
The challenges can be broken down based on the issues encountered by users, businesses, and developers.
The biggest barrier for users is the poor user experience associated with blockchain applications. Interacting with blockchain-based systems generally requires managing private keys, which many people struggle with. This complication has led to a dependence on custodians, who have a track record of misappropriating funds. Additionally, users are unaccustomed to the unpredictable latency and lack of finality in their interactions with digital applications, worsening the overall user experience.
For businesses considering integrating blockchain, there are multiple pain points to address. Some of the issues are:
- Most businesses require a stable cost structure for effective financial planning. The volatile nature of gas markets on blockchains can disrupt a business’s financial stability, making it impractical for widespread adoption.
2. Interoperability, or the ability for different blockchain applications to communicate seamlessly. Many applications are either fully interoperable or not interoperable at all, limiting the potential for streamlined processes and data sharing between different applications.
3. Limited throughput. Current blockchain infrastructures struggle to handle the high transaction volumes required for scalable applications, limiting their usability for many use cases.
4. Privacy is another concern, as blockchain technology inherently provides transparent and publicly auditable transactions. However, certain industries and individuals require privacy for sensitive data, making it challenging to adopt blockchain solutions without compromising confidentiality.
5. The cost and time required to integrate blockchain solutions pose barriers for businesses. Developing and implementing blockchain applications demands skilled developers, adding to the overall cost of integration.
6. Compliance with existing regulations is also a complex task that requires careful navigation. Furthermore, the lack of customer support tailored to enterprises is a significant drawback. Businesses often require dedicated support and guidance when implementing blockchain solutions, but the current ecosystem falls short of providing such assistance.
From a developer’s perspective, blockchain presents unique challenges. The high complexity of distributed systems, cybersecurity, smart contract technology, new programming languages, frameworks, and cryptography knowledge required to develop blockchain applications makes it inaccessible to many developers. This limited pool of skilled developers slows down the development process and stifles innovation within the blockchain ecosystem.
Currently, there is no solution on the market that solves all of the problems stated above, which results in a lack of adoption by developers, businesses, and users.
Enter Arc, the platform that solves these pain points and creates the path to mass adoption:
Arc: Connecting Web2 to Web3 the easy way
Arc, the first Web2-ready ecosystem solving user experience, developer experience, and customer experience.
Arc applications offer a UX that is indistinguishable from that of any centralized application. Web2 developers can create blockchain applications on Arc using its simple yet powerful APIs without any specific blockchain knowledge. Businesses have the same customer experience as integrating any SaaS while benefiting from all the liquidity and interoperability between applications in a single ecosystem.
Our vision:
Define how Web2 and Web3 interoperate and be the bridge between both industries.
Our mission:
Change how traditional and digital businesses and communities interact using blockchain technology.
An introduction to how Arc’s unique features were designed to accomplish our vision:
Arc contains multiple features that will revolutionize the way businesses, users, and developers interact with blockchain.
Arc abstracts blockchain and smart contract development by providing REST APIs that Web2 software developers can work with. There is no need to write smart contracts or possess any specific knowledge of blockchain technology.
The transition from Web2 to Web3 can be a daunting task for businesses and developers. They must navigate different coding languages, platforms, and the complex mechanisms of blockchain technology, including consensus algorithms, cryptography, and smart contracts. Arc was designed to break down these barriers, ensuring an easier transition and integration.
With Arc, businesses significantly reduce time-to-market and engineering overhead. It enables the integration of blockchain without the need to overhaul their existing tech stacks or hire new engineers, leading to substantial cost and resource savings.
The emerging API Orchestration trend in Fintech has been shaping the industry, dictating how businesses cooperate and integrate with each other to provide their clients with financial services. As Arc’ APIs fully abstract blockchain, Arc is natively interoperable with live enterprise systems and API Orchestration software, making Arc a natural choice for Fintechs and Web2 businesses that want to venture into Web3.
There are still many corners of financial services that would benefit from an orchestration layer that abstracts away the pains of integration and unlocks incremental value in the data through aggregation. Orchestration is a way to improve the efficiency and efficacy of developer teams by enabling them to focus on the core competency of the business. — Charles Birnbaum, Bessemer Venture Partners (Partner)
Companies that choose Arc as a platform can instantly tap into our ecosystem to offer Digital Assets, NFTs, Real World Assets, marketplaces, exchanges, etc. for their business cases.
As a (layer 2) ecosystem, Arc enables the seamless transfer of value and liquidity between applications built on it, while developers and businesses also leverage the infrastructure and tools developed by our Partners and Community. Arc also features private transactions, where both businesses and users can choose not to expose private data, ensuring compliance with their geography’s regulations.
Another of the standout core features of Arc is its customizable application interoperability, offering a new level of flexibility. Applications and assets on the Arc platform have the ability to choose which other applications they can interact with. This pivotal feature enables Arc to seamlessly blend permissionless assets with permissioned business models.
The flexibility businesses experience on Arc, coupled with privacy, allows them to be compliant with the regulations that they must abide by, quickly adapting to changes in them and without disrupting the already existing compliance procedures for established organizations. Businesses are able to integrate a self-custodial blockchain ecosystem without being constrained by regulatory pressure.
Another notable benefit is the elimination of concerns surrounding the unpredictability of fee markets. Spikes in gas prices have a substantial influence on a blockchain’s usability and add unpredictability to any applications and economies built on top. Like a SaaS, Arc charges a fixed cost per operation, as there is no variable gas fee market for transaction submission. This removes the challenges of implementing constant pricing models for businesses looking to integrate blockchain solutions and makes using these applications appealing to non-crypto native users. Businesses have the freedom to design their own business models and charge users accordingly.
“What was an economically viable transaction yesterday can suddenly become impractical. Exposing the user to these price fluctuations makes for bad UX. Having a game developer assume the gas price volatility risk can threaten it as a going concern.” — Uri Kolodny, StarkWare CEO
Simultaneously, users are relieved from the need to compete for transaction submission.
Arc features high throughput (up to 10k TPS), low (millisecond) latency, and removes gas markets, while offering the same self-custodial guarantees of the underlying Ethereum blockchain.
Currently, when using Web3 applications, end users need to manage their own private keys and install wallets and software that most do not understand. For mass adoption, we must remove all underlying complexity while simultaneously preserving decentralization. Hence, we are including native support for MPC wallets and AA that allow for the use of traditional logins.
All of the previous features imply that Web2 users that interact with a Arc application have the same UX as a centralized service. They will not need to understand that they are actually using blockchain as the underlying technology and benefit from self-custodiality with none of the downsides that we currently see on dApps.
Conclusion
We are developing Arc to be completely customizable to the needs of the different actors who interact with it, and our platform has a wide range of exceptional features that make us stand out from other ecosystems. It combines the benefits of blockchain with the simplicity of centralized technology.
With Arc, businesses, users, and developers are choosing simplicity, security, compliance, customizability, and unparalleled performance — all in one platform.
Next up
Stay tuned for the next updates, which will present a deeper dive into Arc’ unique features, customer dashboards and our Twitter and LinkedIn for updates!
