OApps Overview

OApps are a powerful evolution to traditional smart contracts. They consist of three parts: application & contracting logic, a stack of keychains, and a user-supplied, parametrizable intent configurator. Owing to this OApps can achieve remarkable features: they are modularly secure, omnichain interoperable and chain-abstracted.

OApps are modularly secure. OApps can support the same applications deployed with different security models, thereby decoupling protocol-layer from application-layer security. The result is homogeneous protocol security, with a heterogeneous application security that minimizes security fragmentation, and captures a user’s true intents when interacting with an application. Users can choose their trust assumptions, while application developers retain the network effects of being able to use a shared protocol security. Any TVL intensive DeFi application, that necessitates substantial deposits, such as Liquid Staking Protocols, AMMs, Money Markets or DEXes, could experience significant advantages from deploying as an OApp.

OApps are omnichain interoperable. Collectively, many OApps form an application mesh topology. This mesh is resiliently designed for cross-interoperability, overcoming isolated and fragmented ecosystems. Their connections are persistent and universal - whether it's letting users seamlessly swap across supported chains, interact with applications from other chains or exchange native assets for wrapped ones.

OApps are chain-abstracted. Whereas traditional smart contract applications only target users of a single chain, OApps can sign transactions and messages targeted for any other foreign chain. They can read and write to other chains which enables a host of completely new use cases enabled by OApps.

OApps are remarkably lightweight and straightforward to build. Developers can write in the language they love, use the tooling, frontend libraries, node & RPC providers, and wallet providers that they are most accustomed to.