Over the past five years, I have observed an interesting shift:
Developers' expectations of the chain have slowly shifted from 'accurate execution' to 'understanding intent'.
This does not mean the chain has become smarter, but rather that the demand for on-chain applications has changed.
1. In the past, we traded data; now we trade 'context'.
A very simple example:
In the past, DeFi liquidations only looked at whether the collateralization ratio fell below the threshold.
What about now? You need to know:
· Why did it drop below (market panic? Oracle attack?)
· Will it recover quickly (how is the liquidity structure)?
· Is there a risk of cascading liquidation (where are the related positions)?
The data hasn't changed, but the story behind the data has become the key to execution.
Two, on-chain logic starts to become 'burdensome'.
We have piled up more L2s, more cross-chain bridges, and more complex derivative protocols.
But many protocols are still using if-then to handle the world.
This is like using an abacus to solve differential equations—it's not that the abacus is bad, but the tool and the problem do not match.
Three, why do developers need an 'explanation layer'?
I often chat with project teams and find that everyone's difficulties are similar:
· Want to introduce AI strategies, but the output is too 'soft' and disconnected.
· Want cross-chain risk control, but different rules for each chain lead to patched logic.
· Want to respond to real-time markets, but events are too dense to handle.
The result is: either give up complex functions or write a middleware yourself.
Four, the explanation layer is not another oracle.
Oracles feed data, while the explanation layer feeds 'judgments'.
For example:
· Is this an attack or a regular large transfer?
· Is this price fluctuation noise or the starting point of a trend?
· Is the interaction of this group of addresses a bot's activity or real user behavior?
It does not replace existing infrastructure but makes it easier to be 'understood'.
Five, what will future applications look like?
If a chain can not only receive data but also receive 'meanings', then:
· The lending agreement can dynamically adjust the risk control model, rather than having fixed thresholds.
· Cross-chain routing can avoid chains with 'semantic conflicts', not just congested chains.
· AI Agents can directly converse with contracts without needing to break it down into a hundred transactions.
Developers' time will shift from 'handling dirty data work' to 'designing application logic'.
Six, why do we need it now?
Because the industry is moving from 'function assembly' to the 'system collaboration' stage.
No matter how strong a single protocol is, it must survive in a complex environment.
The explanation layer is like providing each protocol with a translator + scout, allowing it to understand what battlefield it is in.
Seven, how to determine if such projects are reliable?
I don't look at how many partnership announcements there are, but rather:
1. Whether there are protocols that truly write the explanation results into the core logic.
2. Whether the same set of semantics has been successfully run in a multi-chain environment.
3. Does it make AI's interaction with the chain natural rather than more complex?
If one day developers no longer need to write event parsers themselves, then this direction will have been established.
Finally, a few words:
The future of chains will not be a larger database, but a better conversationalist.
We have moved from 'telling the chain what to do' to 'making the chain understand what we want', which might be more important than we think.
Not all protocols need a brain, but when the ecosystem becomes complex to a certain extent, there must be an 'understanding system' operating at the bottom.
This is the direction that true smart contracts should take: first there is intelligence, then there is the contract @APRO Oracle $AT #APRO
