Introducing Babel: A Gateway to Unified Web3 Experience

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Introducing Babel: A Gateway to Unified Web3 Experience

UX is King.

In the evolving world of Web3, divergent blockchain protocols and complex onboarding requirements are creating a fragmented user experience. Babel, a Polkadot parachain under active development, seeks to bridge these gaps by delivering a seamless, cross-protocol UX—bringing us closer to a cohesive Web3 ecosystem, much like the traditional web.

While Polkadot aspires to be the Web3 standard, the diverse and competitive blockchain landscape necessitates interoperability across ecosystems. Although many blockchain protocols share common elements, non-standardized specifications create significant friction. New users face steep learning curves, and even experienced users are often forced to juggle multiple wallets and tools to interact across protocols. Babel aims to eliminate these barriers, simplifying the Web3 experience for all.

Babel as a Protocol Facade

Babel serves as a Protocol Facade, concealing underlying complexities to provide a universal entry point into the Polkadot ecosystem for users from various protocols. We envision Babel as a gateway for users on other chains to access the Polkadot ecosystem without needing new accounts or wallets. Additionally, rather than issuing its own token, Babel may operate as a system parachain—similar to AssetHub or BridgeHub—using DOT directly as its core currency.

Key Features

1. Bring Your Own Wallet (BYOW)

Polkadot has already demonstrated UI-level compatibility through Frontier, allowing EVM-compatible wallets like MetaMask to connect seamlessly with Polkadot parachains. Babel extends this compatibility by emulating RPC and execution environments for multiple protocols, including Cosmos and potentially Solana, Aptos, and Sui. This feature enables users to access Polkadot without needing new wallets or complex onboarding. Babel’s protocol-level compatibility eases the burden on wallet providers and allows users to navigate without multiple distinct account systems.

2. Unified Account

Babel’s unified account approach allows a single key to correspond to multiple protocol addresses. It creates “interim” accounts that merge across protocols upon a user’s first transaction (for ECDSA—secp256k1—we cannot access the user’s public key until the first outbound transaction). Protocols like Ed25519 naturally support this with public keys, facilitating a unified account experience for seamless access across networks.

3. Deploy Once, Access All

Babel’s adaptable execution environment simplifies migration for developers bringing their DApps to Polkadot. While it may not be a one-size-fits-all execution solution, Babel provides an efficient platform for DApp developers to expand their reach to Polkadot users with minimal adjustments.

4. Cross-Protocol Transactions

Babel enables cross-protocol interactions by allowing transactions signed by wallets from various protocols. For example, a Cosmos or Polkadot wallet user can interact with a DApp initially built for Ethereum without additional steps. Babel’s pallet-babel MVP handles wrapped transactions signed by wallets from different protocols, significantly expanding the user base for cross-chain DApps and making them accessible across various wallet ecosystems.

Next Steps

Babel’s components hold value not only for this project but also for the broader Polkadot ecosystem. Here’s what’s next:

Bringing Solana to Polkadot

Solana’s Rust-based architecture aligns well with Polkadot, but adapting Solana’s eBPF interpreter for compatibility with no_std environments is essential for integrating Solana’s ecosystem into Polkadot.

Passkey Wallets for Blockchain Beginners

With WebAuthn and passkey standards gaining traction, Babel has introduced a Passkey Wallet to reduce the onboarding barrier for new users. This browser-based solution leverages existing Google, Apple, and Microsoft synchronization services, allowing users to manage private keys across devices effortlessly. While it may seem unconventional to rely on Big Tech within blockchain, the trade-offs are worthwhile for enhancing accessibility. For those preferring greater control, more self-sovereign wallet options remain available.

Conclusion

Babel is expanding the possibilities of Web3 by creating a user-friendly, cross-protocol environment that embraces interoperability without compromising the decentralized vision of blockchain technology. We welcome feedback as we continue building this innovative gateway for Polkadot and beyond.

To dive deeper into the code, visit our GitHub repository and check out our DApp example page.

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When you say bridge, you refer to an interoperable wallet? Looking to see if I am interpreti ng this appropriately?

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It seems my explanation might have been a bit unclear. We’re building a Polkadot parachain. To put it simply, what we’re creating is a mainnet that includes an Ethereum emulator, allowing Ethereum users to utilize Polkadot without needing to create a new Polkadot address or install a Polkadot wallet; they can continue using their Ethereum wallet and Ethereum address.

We’re not just emulating Ethereum; we also support Cosmos emulation. In the DApp example linked at the end of the text, we demonstrate a Uniswap V2 application written in Solidity. If you have a Cosmos wallet like Keplr, you can use this Uniswap DApp — designed for the Ethereum protocol — directly with your Cosmos wallet and Cosmos address.

In the future, we plan to add emulation for Solana and other major protocols. Just like in the traditional web (WWW), where users can access any website regardless of whether they’re using Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, we aim to allow users to access various services within the Polkadot ecosystem, no matter which protocol or wallet they are using.

Additionally, we’re planning to connect bridge and cross-chain interoperability modules to our service. Other parachains have already developed excellent tools for these purposes. This means we aim to provide a unified gateway, enabling not just compatibility at the UX level but also control over assets on Ethereum mainnet, Cosmos Hub, and beyond.

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This sounds great.
Where are the docs? discord? general discussion of what, if I understood correctly, seems to be a pretty major move in our ecosystem… ?

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The documentation is still a work in progress. We’re a small team and currently spending more time on code implementation. You can check out our progress so far through the Github repository.

We believe that our work has the potential to greatly expand the Polkadot ecosystem, but there are trade-offs involved. For Polkadot to achieve a dominant position in the market, it needs to build a strong user base of its own. Our solution could actually delay the kind of user lock-in that would make Polkadot more integral to its users. However, we think this approach also clearly demonstrates Polkadot’s flexibility and extensibility—something that’s not easy to achieve with other protocols.

The core development team is currently focused on JAM and Polka-VM, and we’re uncertain if our direction aligns with theirs. The foundation likely has a different vision, and if we don’t fit well within that vision, we may find it difficult to secure substantial support. We don’t want to lose the momentum to keep working on this, but it won’t be easy without support from the ecosystem.

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First time I’m reading “Protocol Facade” - I like it a lot!

And I like that you are planning to add passkey. We need more abstraction.

What do you think about the Asset Hub migration? Do you see an overlap here?

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Thank you for your interest in our project! Feel free to share any thoughts or feedback you have.

Functionally, there are some similarities between the AssetHub migration and our project, but I believe our approach has a broader scope and more potential for expansion in the long term.

For instance, to support Ethereum dApp deployment, we’re providing full EVM support, whereas AssetHub uses a YUL interpreter. There are pros and cons to each choice. The AssetHub approach is more streamlined, easier to manage, and offers greater optimization opportunities tailored to Polkadot. We, on the other hand, may have to handle some inefficiencies with Ethereum emulation on Polkadot, but we might gain an advantage in compatibility.

While AssetHub is (at least for now) focused on attracting the dominant Ethereum user base, we designed our solution with multi-protocol support in mind from the beginning, and we’ve already started development to support Solana. I see differences in terms of covered functionality, target user base, ultimate goals, and potential for expandability.

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Thanks for the distinction!

Where can we stay in the loop? I’ll for sure have a look at your MVP when live :slight_smile:

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The alpha version testnet is already up and running. You can try out a few things from DApp example page. This DApp is a Uniswap V2 deployed on the Babel testnet, and you can use various wallets such as Polkadot (SubWallet, Polkadot.js, Talisman, etc.), Cosmos (Keplr), and Ethereum (MetaMask, Brave, etc.) to access Uniswap directly.

Currently, however, only Polkadot accounts using the secp256k1 algorithm are supported. (This is not due to technical limitations but rather due to a careful approach in protocol design, as connecting with other signature algorithms like sr25519 and ed25519 is not cryptographically straightforward but more of an arbitrary linkage.)

In the Send menu, you can send testnet tokens (ZIG) to any address, whether it’s an Ethereum address starting with 0x, a Cosmos address starting with cosmos1…, or a Polkadot address, which usually starts with the digit 5. You can claim 1 ZIG daily from the Faucet.

If you have cryptographic knowledge, you might find it interesting to register the same private key in MetaMask, Keplr, and a Polkadot wallet, and observe how the balance is shared across each wallet address when you send funds to them.