Blockchain technology faces a critical adoption barrier: fragmented user experiences across multiple networks. Users are navigating complex wallet configurations, bridge protocols, and varying gas fees across dozens of different blockchains. This fragmentation results in friction for end users and also poses strategic challenges for enterprises integrating blockchain solutions.
Shun Kakinoki, who is the Head of Cross-Chain at Sequence and founder of the recently acquired LightDotSo, tackles these challenges head on through innovative chain abstraction protocols.
Shun developed an EVM chain abstraction protocol to unify all chains as one cohesive experience at LightDotSo. The company’s viral prototype caught Sequence’s attention, leading to an acquisition that accelerated their cross-chain infrastructure capabilities. Shun now leads initiatives that safeguard billions of requests powering critical web3 infrastructure.
His approach is a combination of deep technical expertise in blockchain protocols with enterprise needs and user experience design. Building open-source solutions that attract global developer communities to scaling mission-critical infrastructure that handles real dollar values, Shun’s journey demonstrates how technical innovation drives practical business outcomes in the blockchain landscape.
Shun shares with us insights on building resilient blockchain infrastructure, the strategic importance of chain abstraction for enterprise adoption, and how organizations can prepare for a multi-chain future. He discusses lessons learned from founding a successful startup, the role of acquisitions in accelerating innovation, and his vision for making web3 technology as seamless and reliable as traditional cloud infrastructure.
1. What key lessons have you learned from building and scaling blockchain infrastructure at both LightDotSo and now Sequence?
Shun Kakinoki: Building Light from a small project into a viral prototype and then scaling code inside Sequence, where it now safeguards billions of requests that underpins the critical infrastructure of web3 taught me three truths. First, code is key; blockchain interactions are mission critical as it handles actual dollar values – testing and code reliability is a must. Second, design for users not developers: in this space it’s easy to fall into alignment traps that don’t necessarily align to user benefits; keeping the end-user bliss insight is crucial. Third, build in the open: open‑sourcing Light invited more eyeballs and garnered attention leading to working at Sequence.
2. Can you explain chain abstraction in practical terms for business executives who are evaluating blockchain solutions for their organizations?
Imagine the “multi‑cloud” era for blockchains. Instead of wiring your stack to AWS only, you plug into an orchestrator that spins workloads across clouds. Chain abstraction does the same for blockchains: one integration chooses the cheapest, fastest, or most compliant network for each transaction on the fly, sparing you vendor lock‑in and letting finance teams budget gas the way they budget compute. Not only that; users get to experience the same level of hasslefree frictionless UX – enabling them to have a unified experience across everywhere for Web3 applications and interactions.
3. How do you approach the balance between technical innovation and practical enterprise adoption when developing cross-chain solutions?
Sequence’s mantra is “open source from the ground up.” Not only do we open source traditional libraries and SDKs, the team at Sequence has built numerous ecosystem leading libraries across the board; enabling us to move fast while controlling the entire stack. Indirectly, that cadence lets us push the frontier and build trust towards enterprise clients – without jeopardizing SLAs.
4. What are the most significant technical and business challenges preventing mainstream adoption of blockchain technology, and how is cross-chain infrastructure addressing these barriers?
Blockchain’s remaining hurdles aren’t just code – they’re experiential, regulatory, and human. Fragmentation forces users to juggle wallets, bridges, and gas on half‑a‑dozen networks; cross‑chain relayers roll that odyssey into a two‑click checkout and merge liquidity silos along the way. Compliance anxiety keeps legal teams on the brake pedal; especially with crypto – embedding jurisdictional filters, KYC, and data‑residency logic into the abstraction layer means the same rulebook runs everywhere in this space of blockchain. The last mile is talent scarcity: “full‑stack” now implies Solidity, zk‑proofs, and bridge risk models. By exposing familiar builder UI akin to AWS and cloud, we let a JavaScript team ship Web3 features without hiring a specialized blockchain engineer.
5. How does chain abstraction solve real business problems beyond just technical complexity? What specific ROI can enterprises expect?
It’s still pretty early; but there are multiple clients for our upcoming product that is garnering heavy interest. Users and enterprises will be able to harness the entire buying power of all chains and ecosystems; enabling a 10x experience upon integration. Beyond hard numbers, our abstraction future‑ proof strategy: new chains become a config change, not a rewrite – is heavily beneficial for both enterprise and users.
6. From your perspective as both a founder and now a key executive at Sequence, what role does acquisition strategy play in accelerating blockchain innovation?
Acquisitions compress the build‑or‑buy dilemma. Through Light’s acquisition – we are able to launch a flagship cross-chain product for Sequence; Equally important, our startup cadence of weekly prototypes seeped into the broader Sequence roadmap, refreshing the company’s risk tolerance. But all of this is a mere testament to the amazing team and technology that Sequence has built over the years – and the team at Light is only doing its part to contribute newly to the team.
7. How do you see the relationship between account abstraction and chain abstraction evolving, particularly in creating seamless user experiences?
Think of Account Abstraction as the cloud account layer that synced your photos across iPhone, Android, and web before you ever cared about file systems. Chain Abstraction is Kubernetes for block-space: it schedules workloads – payments, trades, mints – onto whichever chain offers the right mix of security and latency where preferable. Once AA turns wallets into portable execution environments with familiar cryptography schemes like passkeys, CA can orchestrate them like micro-services, draining liquidity from congested L1s to roll-ups or vice-versa. To the user, “crypto” dissolves into a single operating system where an app simply requests resources (gas, liquidity, security) and the orchestration layer provides them, enabling a 10x better UX as of now which is increasingly fragmented.
8. What advice would you give to CTOs and engineering leaders who are tasked with developing blockchain strategies for their organizations?
Start with personal problems and dig deep and actively use new product launches and demos. Architect for composability and alignment where there’s marginal improvement otherwise: use standard messaging layers and abstraction tools so swapping an interface feels like switching common databases, not migrating entire schemas and backend.
9. Where do you see the blockchain infrastructure landscape heading in the next 3-5 years, and how should enterprises be preparing for this evolution?
Cross-chain infrastructure is heading toward modular roll‑ups, intent‑centric execution, and isolated security between ecosystems. Architect for composability now: use standard messaging layers and abstraction tools so swapping an execution layer feels like switching databases, not migrating data centers.
10. How do you measure success in the blockchain infrastructure space beyond traditional technical metrics like transaction throughput or latency?
Throughput and latency are merely the heart rate; I look for overall health across three dimensions with regards to developer adoption. Adoption is the hum of the developer hive – SDK installs, pull requests, and community questions reveal whether we’re solving pain or trivia. Impact shows up on client numbers, expressed in volume processed, customers delighted, and revenue unlocked. Resilience is the silent guardian – speed of anomaly detection, number of zero‑days averted, and time‑to‑patch when one slips through. When those gauges read green, the infrastructure is doing its real job: letting customers sleep at night.
