How Universal Fee Abstraction Works

The Problem: What Users Expect vs. What They Get​

Imagine ordering a coffee. You say "one latte" and expect one transaction. Simple, right?

Now imagine the barista saying: "First, go to the bank across the street and get quarters. Then come back, switch to our payment system, convert your quarters to tokens, approve the token transfer, and then we'll make your coffee."

That's multichain DeFi today.

User clicks "Stake 500 USDC" expecting one outcome.

What they actually get:

switch chain → find gas → bridge → swap → approve → stake → track 3 txs

These aren't UX bugs. They're architectural consequences.

The Root Cause: Fragmented State Architecture​

Most multichain apps are built on chain-local state + chain-bound execution.

Think of it like having separate bank accounts in different countries, each with:

• Different currencies
• Different operating hours
• Different transaction rules
• Different account balances

Every blockchain maintains its own isolated:

• Balances - Your 100 USDC on Ethereum ≠ 100 USDC on Arbitrum
• Contract storage - State lives only on one chain
• Liquidity - Pools are fragmented across chains
• Fee markets - Each chain has its own gas token and pricing
• Execution context - Transactions must run inside one chain's rules

So your "single app" is actually N different apps, each running against different local state.

The Five Symptoms of Fragmentation​

These aren't UI flaws—they're physics under today's architecture:

1. Chain-Specific UX: The Unpredictability Problem​

The symptom: The same action behaves differently on each chain.

The analogy: Like using the same Uber app in different cities, but in Tokyo you get a car, in Mumbai you get a rickshaw, in Venice you get a boat, and in some cities the app just doesn't work.

Why it happens:

• Deeper liquidity pool on Chain A → better rates
• Empty pool on Chain B → transaction fails
• Different slippage on Chain C → unexpected costs
• Feature missing entirely on Chain D → broken UX

One UI → four different realities → zero predictability.

2. Forced Network Switching: The Context Juggling Problem​

The symptom: Users constantly switch networks mid-flow.

The analogy: Imagine if Gmail forced you to "switch email servers" every time you wanted to send to someone on a different domain. Gmail → Yahoo → Outlook → back to Gmail.

Why it happens:

Everyone blames wallet UX. But it's not the wallet.

Verification + execution must happen inside one chain's domain:

• The signer binds to a chain
• The transaction must follow that chain's rules
• The state it touches lives only on that chain

So "switch network" really means:

• Switch verification domain
• Switch execution context
• Switch state machine

The fix: Universal Verification Layer (UVL)

Sign once → verify once → not bound to a chain.

3. Fragmented Fees: The Gas Token Chaos​

The symptom: Users need different gas tokens for one action.

The analogy: Like needing to pay highway tolls in exact change, but each toll booth only accepts a different currency. First toll wants euros, second wants yen, third wants rupees.

Why it happens:

A single "Stake 100 USDC" intent touches multiple fee systems:

• Different gas tokens (ETH, MATIC, ARB, OP)
• Different L2/L1 pricing models
• Different data availability costs
• Different mempool dynamics

Users end up needing gas on 2-3 chains for one outcome.

The UX feels random because the underlying fee markets are random.

The fix: Fee Abstraction + Universal Validators Model

• User sees one all-in cost
• Universal Validators handle gas routing behind the scenes
• Apps can sponsor fees when needed
• No more "insufficient gas" errors

4. Bridge → Swap → Stake: The Conversion Killer​

The symptom: Users manually navigate multi-step cross-chain flows.

The analogy: Like booking a flight from New York to Tokyo, but the airline makes you:

1. Book NYC → LA yourself
2. Wait at LAX and book your own LA → Tokyo flight
3. Handle your own luggage transfer
4. Deal with customs twice
5. Track three separate confirmations

Why it happens:

You're asking users to manually cross isolated state islands:

bridge → wait → swap → approve → stake → reconcile

Each hop = new chain context, new gas token, new failure point.

This is where 80% of users drop.

The fix: Universal Execution Architecture (UEA)

UEA treats the entire flow as one universal payload, not a sequence of user-driven hops.

Human-readable universal payload:

"Stake 100 USDC with 0.5% slippage, deadline 10 min"

UEA coordinates all cross-chain work under the hood. User sees one action, one confirmation.

5. Local Wallet Logic: The "Works on My Machine" Problem​

The symptom: Same app, different devices, different behaviors.

The analogy: Like if your Netflix account showed different content on your phone vs. laptop vs. TV, and you had to manually sync your watch history between devices.

Why it happens:

Wallets compute chain context locally on each device:

• Active network selection
• RPC endpoint connections
• Pending transaction tracking
• Cached balance states
• Event subscriptions

Different devices = different states = unpredictable UX.

The fix: Shared State + Unified Receipts

Move session state and execution tracking off the device into a shared execution model.

The app no longer depends on the fragility of per-device chain context.

The Solution: Fix the State Model, Fix the UX​

Everything maps back to one principle:

UX follows state.
Fix the state model and UX collapses to single-chain simplicity.

You can redesign the UI forever, but if the underlying architecture is fragmented, the UX will remain fragmented.

Push Chain's approach:

Instead of hiding fragmentation with bridges and relayers, eliminate the architecture that causes it.

• Shared state - One source of truth across all chains
• Universal verification - Sign once, execute anywhere
• Fee abstraction - One cost, any token
• Intent-based execution - Describe what you want, not how to do it
• Unified receipts - One confirmation for cross-chain actions

Learn More​

Want to explore the primitives mentioned above—UVL, UEA, shared-state, and fee abstraction?

push.org/docs is the best place to start.

Build apps that feel like single-chain simplicity, but work across all chains.