Understand the Intent-Centric architecture that focuses solely on results centered around "intention" in one article
"Intent is a set of signed declarative constraints that allows users to outsource transaction creation to third parties without relinquishing full control over the transaction."Author: @AcCore, @YBBCapital Researcher
Introduction
The cumbersome user experience of Web3 has become one of the reasons hindering the large-scale adoption of blockchain. Recently, when the well-known Web3 venture capital firm Paradigm introduced ten potential trends it focuses on in the crypto space, it placed "Intent-Centric protocols and infrastructure" at the top of the list, instantly drawing significant attention from the industry. This concept revolves around a design philosophy that centers on user needs, treating intent as the core.
For example, "I want to order a 30 yuan hamburger delivery" is an "intent." To fulfill this intent, the user only needs to input their name, phone number, delivery address, and place the order on the delivery platform, without worrying about how the 30 yuan is earned by the merchant or how the platform allocates the delivery person, or how the delivery is made to their home. This structural form greatly simplifies the user experience threshold, allowing every user to simply express their intent and hand over the intermediate processes to various other protocols, waiting for the final result. Note: This article is not for project promotion and is suitable for general readers; the content is for analytical reference only.
Intent-Centric Design Principles
Background:
In the Web3 world, transactions are the core functionality. Whether in DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, or any other sector, basic transactions are indispensable. However, the decentralized nature of blockchain means that different chains are independent islands, and we need to find bridges to link these islands to complete asset exchanges. While centralized exchanges provide a convenient user asset trading experience, users still need to authorize their wallets one by one to navigate countless Dapp applications. To lower the experience threshold for decentralized applications, the Intent-Centric concept has emerged.
Although the concept of "intent" is not new, the recent wave of interest was sparked by Paradigm, so we refer to their definition: "Intent is a set of signed declarative constraints that allows users to outsource transaction creation to third parties without relinquishing complete control over the transaction." In practice, signatures are driven by the user's spontaneous intent, but can outsourcing asset handling to third parties truly lower the user experience threshold? The following discussion will explore what is needed to realize the vision of Intent-Centric.
What is Intent:
Intent-Centric can be understood as "intent-centered." Paradigm articulated its interpretation of the intent concept in the article "Intent-Based Architectures and Their Risks" published on June 1, 2023. In a typical user transaction flow, transaction signatures allow validators to verify execution along a specific computational path, with the gas fees incentivizing validators to complete the computation. However, intent does not explicitly refer to a specific computational path; any path that meets certain constraint conditions can yield the final result. In practice, by signing and sharing intent, users effectively allow recipients to choose the transaction execution path on their behalf (as shown in the diagram below). To distinguish from transactions, we define intent as an information signature that allows state transitions from a given starting state to retrieve multiple paths to achieve the final state result【1】.
Image source: Intent-Based Architectures and Their Risks -- Paradigm
As shown in the diagram above, when submitting a transaction, a clear execution path must be specified, such as exchanging tokens on Uniswap. However, when submitting intent, the execution path is determined by matching results. For users, they only need to express their intent, while the matching execution path is handled by Intent-Centric related protocols/applications, with the Solver responsible for matching the execution path that meets the intent, ultimately waiting for execution and obtaining results.
In short: Transaction = I specify how to execute it; Intent = I just want this result without caring about the implementation process.
Different preferences for intent can be matched in complex ways, and achieving this process requires "finding trading counterparts" and "solving by the solver."
Bob, the Intent Solver
Image source: ETH Global
Bob the Solver (音译：鲍勃求解器, hereafter referred to as the solver but not specifically Bob Solver) is an intent-based trading infrastructure aimed at simplifying operational processes, lowering user participation thresholds, and integrating into wallets and decentralized applications. Essentially, it creates and executes outsourced transactions for users, primarily composed of two interconnected parts:
Solver for creating transactions: This includes AI chatbots + intent classification + transaction optimization, responsible for achieving the optimal execution path for user intent and sending it to the AA wallet. The solver is equipped with machine learning (ML) models for classifying user intent.
"Abstract Account Wallet" for executing transactions: This uses the EIP-4337 standard AA wallet system, composed of bundlers and paymaster contracts, integrated with the solver to simplify the transaction process.
Intent Layer and Solver
Can an intent layer be built independently and allow solvers to compete for solutions? While theoretically feasible, the reality is that implementation is very challenging. Here, it is essential to mention Anoma and SUAVE (details in the following content) to address the core MEV issue. To realize the vision of Intent-Centric, what characteristics must be present to safely complete asset transfers when outsourcing transactions to third parties?
Trustworthy
To achieve the trustworthy and decentralized characteristics of blockchain, assuming there exists a simple "intent network" may not be sufficient, as it cannot fulfill the guarantees of intent for users and solvers. After expressing intent, users will have specific costs calculated for various execution paths by the Solver, which will also be constrained by user-defined adjustments. Users need to know that the execution paths are trustworthy.
Privacy
The solver provides users with an optimal execution path, but its complex nature inevitably makes it vulnerable to hacking, risking asset theft or user information exposure. Additionally, in many cases, users' on-chain activity information is exposed to observers. To ensure user information security, at least some important information must be encrypted or hidden, but achieving computable information privatization on the blockchain is very challenging.
Expression of Intent
Intent is an abstract concept, and the way users express intent on the blockchain seems to share similar issues with how users pose questions to AI. How should I explain it so that it understands what I want to express? For instance, if some expressions are vague, will the solver incur more gas fees when choosing execution paths? An efficient and accurate parser is key to realizing intent.
Consistency of Intent with MEV
Taking SUAVE as an example of an independent blockchain addressing EVM's real-world issues, when it processes Ethereum intents, it requires cross-chain settlement. This is similar to the significant successes achieved by previously launched MEV-Geth and MEV-Boost decentralized solutions, which meet the demand for cross-chain MEV with a fairer and more transparent transaction processing mechanism.
Resistance to Censorship
According to Paradigm's explanation, a core issue arises: AI-enabled parsers should not exist singularly. If a single parser is attacked or disabled, it could lead to severe system outages, along with issues like refusal to execute or erroneous execution. These problems may be addressed by Anoma, discussed later.
Competitiveness of Solvers
Different users will have different intents, and the solver will encompass multiple transaction categories, such as exchanges, cross-chain, staking, etc. There will be no competition among singular solvers, as they can only charge fees when settling on-chain. Is it possible to allow solvers responsible for different transaction categories to reasonably redistribute or optimize parsing algorithms to maintain competitiveness among solvers, enabling every valid address to qualify as a solver and successfully participate in the mempool, thereby enhancing transaction execution quality?
Intent Mempool
Paradigm proposed three new mempool solutions:
a. Permissionless Intent Pools: An open design allowing anyone to submit intents to the mempool and providing executors with permissionless access.
b. Permissioned Intent Pools: Requires permission to submit and execute user intents, allowing users to pass intents to trusted third parties for execution.
c. Hybrid Solutions: A combination of the above two types of mempools, aiming to achieve a balance between openness and control.
Elements Required to Realize Intent
Account Abstraction (AA)
A brief review: Ethereum has two types of accounts: EOA (Externally Owned Accounts) and CA (Contract Accounts). The difference is that the former can initiate transactions, while the latter cannot initiate transactions but can host Solidity code. Most of the accounts we currently use are EOA accounts. Additionally, there are multi-signature smart contract accounts (SCW) like Gnosis Safe. Since the aforementioned contract accounts cannot initiate transactions, EOA is needed to start SCW, allowing EOA to only be responsible for signing transactions while the smart contract can execute any logic, enhancing asset security while developing countless new application scenarios.
The implementation of the intent layer requires account abstraction (the reasons will be explained in the SUAVE section below). EIP-4337 consists of six parts: UserOperation, Bundler, EntryPoint, Wallet Factory, Paymaster, and Signature Aggregator. The brief operational flow is as follows:
Initiate user operation to execute transaction content;
Send the operation to the P2P "UserOperation Mempool," where the bundler "bundles" the executed signatures, gas fees, and other user operation transaction content for on-chain submission (actual cases involve various situations, which will not be elaborated here);
The bundler sends the "bundled" content to the entry contract for processing, optionally using the signature aggregator to check legality;
The entry contract pre-sends the transaction to the wallet contract or paymaster contract;
The paymaster contract can unfold various types based on the project party's business logic, which will not be elaborated here【2】.
Image source: ReadON Investment Research Group
Smart contract wallets are undoubtedly the largest participants in account abstraction. The main competitors currently are multi-signature wallets like Gnosis Safe and the Candide smart contract wallet, which focuses on building full compatibility with EIP-4337. Analyzing the above diagram, it is clear that account abstraction utilizes bundlers + paymaster contracts to achieve "narrow intent suitable for developers," while Paradigm uses Solver + AI to achieve "broad intent suitable for general users." Placing the concepts of "abstraction" and "intent" within the same understanding scope is quite fitting, as both possess a magical concept of order amidst chaos.
Programmability of Intent
According to Researcher @tmel0211, the programmability of intent can be summarized as: If intent is not programmable, then programs cannot be executed, automation becomes impossible, and intelligence cannot be discussed. How to understand this? Intent is a human expression of thought, inherently containing emotional factors and abstraction, while the recipient is a series of cold codes and algorithms. For example, if my intent is to make money, how do the codes and algorithms help me find the execution path for that intent? Intent-Centric is not a brand-new concept but is built upon existing simplified intent designs. Therefore, we organize existing Intent-Centric projects and concepts.
Known representative projects:
UniswapX: off-Chain extension solution intent
CowSwap: off-Chain extension solution intent
1inch: Fusion order matching off-Chain + multi-DEX Aggregator
Solv Protocol: New ERC3525 standard implementing complex financial intent
Unibot: Centralized server backend preset parameters, rules, etc., for automated intent
Opensea: Off-chain signatures + on-chain contract combinations
Known representative concepts:
ERC3525 standard: Proposed by Solv Protocol, aiming to provide a semi-qualitative asset standard that can describe digital assets more structurally to meet various application scenario needs;
Abstract Account: Provides a complete set of standardized account management interfaces to abstract the underlying implementation complexity of different types of accounts, gas-free, social recovery, etc.;
MPC Wallet: Uses private key sharding technology to split private keys into multiple parts, stored across multiple independent nodes. During transactions or other operations, these nodes collaboratively compute signatures through secure multi-party computation protocols without reconstructing the complete private key.
In summary, whether representative projects or concepts, they all aim to provide users with a simplified experience through a series of more complex instructions. If we categorize the above content, it can be divided into four types:
Centralized Intent:
Based on centralized resource matching platforms, such as Unibot and other bot trading CEX exchanges, Friend.tech, etc.;
Structured Intent:
Based on smart contracts or proxy contract combinations, on-chain + off-chain preprocessing combinations, new ERC standards, etc., with preset parameters adapted to EVM virtual machine execution;
Distributed Intent:
Based on a new blockchain architecture that requires no distributed Solver + Executor, creating a new executable user complex intent market;
Intelligent Intent:
Based on AIGC as the input + outcome carrier, programming users' complex intents through AI trained across the DeFi domain and executing outputs.
Image source: Researcher @tmel0211
MEV
Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) refers to the additional rewards miners can gain by adding, deleting, or reordering transactions, enabling behaviors such as DEX arbitrage, front-running, back-running, liquidation, sniping bots, time-bandit attacks, sandwich attacks, etc., which harm the rights of users who normally use DeFi.
To elaborate, transactions on Ethereum are sorted by miners based on gas; high gas transactions are prioritized for processing, while low gas transactions are processed slowly. Transactions are first submitted to the mempool, waiting to be included in a block【3】. Validators extract transactions from the mempool and add them to the next block during construction. Since the mempool is public, searchers have the opportunity to pay validators to order transactions in specific ways, extracting value from users through sorting, thus creating MEV miner value. Realizing user intent requires outsourcing transactions to third parties, so the MEV generated from transactions in the Intent-Centric architecture is also a key issue to focus on.
The most direct impact of MEV: while harming the entire network, competition also makes the market more efficient.
Uneven capital distribution (large holders having more ETH chips) may lead to centralization of validators (larger staking pools obtaining higher MEV rewards), reducing overall network security. Even though certain effective mitigation measures have emerged, the centralization risk brought by block construction rights cannot be completely eliminated at present.
To increase the likelihood of transactions being bundled, MEV-competing searchers bid gas for priority, which can congest the public mempool due to high gas fee transactions from searchers. However, DEX arbitrage and loan liquidation can also help the DeFi market reach equilibrium faster, maintaining market stability.
MEV is an important topic that the industry has explored for years and cannot be overlooked. The continuous exploration of how to mitigate the adverse factors brought by MEV is ongoing, and this article will elaborate on this in the next chapter, "General Solutions for Realizing Intent." According to EigenPhi data as of September 15, 2023, there remains significant profit potential in on-chain MEV. After Ethereum's merge, profits from using Flashbots' block-producing nodes have exceeded 200,000 ETH, making it a substantial profit-sharing pie.
Image source: EigenPhi ｜ MEV Data
Cross-Chain, Sorters, and Oracles
Intent-Centric is a vast system architecture. According to Paradigm's explanation, the content of Intent-Centric will involve the entire blockchain domain, and the massive asset transfers between various Layer 1 and different Layer 2 must be processed conveniently through intent. The current industry development has brought us into a multi-chain era, where each chain is an island, but there are different bridges between these islands, making cross-chain and sorters essential bridges to meet intent.
Based on the current prosperity of the Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem, the four major players recognized are Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, and Starkware, each showcasing their Layer 3 narratives, with OPstack and ZKstack corresponding. The common issue facing Layer 2 today is the centralization of sorters. While feasible solutions are actively being sought, the reality is that there is a huge profit potential hidden here. Taking OPstack as an example, we can simply understand its profit model as "renting shops." The profit of Layer 2 = Layer 2 gas income + MEV income - Layer 1 gas expenditure. To achieve the intent's purpose, the tolls between Layer 2 and Layer 1 are indispensable.
The discussion turns to cross-chain bridges. The current prosperity of Layer 2 has made us aware of the considerable profits of sorters, but cross-chain profits should not be underestimated. Cross-chain is an essential bridge to connect different chain islands. As one of the infrastructures, in the current bear market environment, in addition to meeting the cross-chain needs of normal trading users, the demand for cross-chain due to airdrop expectations from yield farmers still exists in the market. The continuously thriving Dapps applications will gradually eat into profits from convenient centralized exchanges. However, the security of cross-chain bridges is a notable issue. According to official data from hacked.slowmist, there have been 38 public security incidents in the cross-chain bridge ecosystem from June 29, 2021, to September 16, 2023, with total financial damages reaching 2 billion USD. In summary, the gas fees involved in realizing intent are unavoidable, but this article will not delve into the security of sorters and cross-chain, although it is a matter worthy of our attention.
Image source: hacked.slowmist
Turning to oracles, from a macro perspective, the strong financial attributes of blockchain lead it to be a deterministic system environment. Even though the narrative of RWA has been discussed for years, the reality is that blockchain cannot obtain real-world data outside the chain, only data within the chain, as virtual machines (VM) do not allow smart contracts to have network calls. Therefore, the operation of smart contracts must yield consistent results, making blockchain data closed to the outside world.
Zooming in on a micro perspective, oracles are a crucial factor in the DeFi world. Although the security of different protocols is usually inherited from the underlying smart contract network, their normal operation still relies on oracles. If an oracle of a protocol is attacked or compromised, the entire protocol can be manipulated.
Today's DeFi prefers to define itself as "primitives" and hopes more teams will build products or composite protocols on its foundation. However, in this iterative process, the newly derived DeFi contracts will upgrade their operational logic to support a larger ecosystem, which also brings some external dependencies and generates unpredictable related risks.
After years of development, the DeFi field has also accumulated billions of dollars in thefts. For example, in March of this year, the Euler Finance lending protocol was hacked, resulting in losses of up to 200 million USD. It allows users to post collateral and borrow, but the issue occurred in a specific function without security checks, enabling users to disrupt the basic invariants of the lending market (such as the basic invariant in UniSwap: tokenBalanceX * tokenBalanceY == k). Similarly, derivative protocols relying on oracles for pricing, if lacking internal price discovery mechanisms, are easily affected by price lags and lack of updates, severely limiting their scale and user experience. This also explains why trader Avraham Eisenberg was able to successfully attack Mango Markets and withdraw 116 million USD from the cryptocurrency trading platform.
In summary, the dark laws of the blockchain forest are filled with unknown risks. There is still a long way to go to realize the vision of the Intent-Centric architecture.
Image source: Chainalysis
Aggregators and Gas
The direct purpose of aggregators is to save users the trouble of finding the best trading paths and profit strategies, including various types of aggregators, such as trading aggregators, information aggregators, yield aggregators, liquidity aggregators, and asset management aggregators. The Intent-Centric architecture requires a certain degree of centralization, and various aggregators may facilitate the solver in finding execution paths during the intent process, providing a certain degree of "reference answers."
Gas is an indispensable toll for executing various transactions. How to optimize gas fees is also one of the industry's perennial topics. Currently, the overall focus is on optimizing from the product end, account abstraction wallets, and DeFi protocols. Whether it is possible to combine aggregators, account abstraction, and DeFi protocols from a new product perspective to achieve gas optimization effects remains to be seen.
Wallet Authorization
The first step in Dapp interaction: wallet authorization. Let us return our focus to the transaction itself. The purpose of the Intent-Centric architecture is to simplify transactions and lower user participation thresholds, but every transaction within an intent will involve countless authorization signatures. How to safely and conveniently resolve authorization issues is also a consideration. Perhaps account abstraction and the dappOS V2 discussed below are good solutions.
General Solutions for Realizing Intent
Anoma
Image source: Anoma official
Introduction:
According to a Coindesk report on May 31, 2023, the Anoma Foundation has successfully completed a total investment of 25 million USD from 14 capital firms, including CMCC Global and Electric Capital. The project proposed the architecture of intent in its white paper published in August 2022: Intent Gossip Layer for spreading intent, discovering trading counterparts, and matching execution paths. Its design serves as the default verification path, with all gossip information signed by the issuing node, forming a signature chain traceable to the initiator. This function is particularly important for resisting censorship and DoS attacks (Denial of Service attacks, a method used to disrupt legitimate users' access to target network or website resources). Therefore, when discussing the realization of Intent-Centric, Anoma is indispensable.
Anoma was initially developed based on Tendermint and used a Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanism, later transitioning to a PoS consensus mechanism called "Typhon" developed by Heliax, allowing for consensus partitioning between independent chains. The project team has developed various technologies, including Taiga (a private state transition framework integrated into the Intent Gossip Layer and matching layer), Typhon (cross-chain atomic transaction consensus mechanism), MASP (multi-asset shielded pool), Vamp-IR (arithmetic circuit language), and Juvix (smart contract programming language), to promote cryptography and distributed systems experimentation.
Referring back to the "programmability of intent" section, to realize the Intent-Centric architectural vision, programmable algorithm structures and discovering trading counterparts are essential functions. It needs to be built on a foundation of multi-interactivity and multi-application, leading to the introduction of Anoma as a unified architecture for full-stack decentralized applications, serving as a model for building decentralized applications together.
Image source: Anoma
Design Architecture and Innovations:
Privacy Payments
To protect user privacy and prevent others from tracing and collecting data, the sender, receiver, amount, and asset denominations are all encrypted, ensuring fund transfers through zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs). Its uniqueness lies in allowing all assets to share the same shielded pool (MASP) to provide composable asset protection, increasing user anonymity, rather than shielding each asset individually. The more participants and assets involved, the more frequent the transfers, significantly enhancing the concealment of asset transfer data.
Image source: Delphi Digital - Delphi Creative
Barter Trading
This project repeatedly emphasizes the "barter" exchange plan, with its core idea stemming from ancient barter. Simply put, it involves exchanging goods without a medium of exchange and without cash payments. Participants must have a double coincidence to successfully trade: both parties must have the items the other wants, and both must facilitate the transfer. This helps users transmit intents to the nodes operating the intent gossip layer and check whether these intents are compatible with matching node operators to create and send corresponding transaction ledgers.
Anoma implements a digital barter plan that facilitates the trading of goods, services, or digital representations of value.
Intent Matching System
In Ethereum EVM, transactions do not mandate future states but authorize specific execution paths. Anoma includes a matching system that allows users to broadcast transaction intents using Gossip. In simple terms, Anoma consists of two main parts: a distributed ledger and an intent matching system, which complement each other but can also operate independently. By using intent gossip running nodes, token exchange solvers, and RPC servers requesting new intents, transactions from matched intents are submitted to the distributed ledger, helping users automatically discover trading counterparts.
Multi-Chain Support
Anoma uses the IBC protocol for cross-chain communication within the Cosmos ecosystem, allowing data transfer between different blockchains. IBC utilizes relayers to achieve data transmission across different blockchains, aiming to become a multi-chain privacy layer. Currently, while relayers are typically operated by node operators, anyone capable can run them and earn fees in the process.
Fractal Scaling Expansion Solution
Anoma employs a fractal solution to address blockchain scalability issues, allowing users to create local instances to meet other transaction needs. Fractal refers to dividing Anoma into different application chains to handle different tasks, enabling each Anoma application chain to be highly customizable for scalability and to cope with user growth (similar to supporting IBC protocols for expansion purposes). In the future, its security will be enhanced by the Interchain Security, Mesh Security, and Interchain Alliance projects.
SUAVE
Introduction:
According to news from July 25, 2023, Ethereum infrastructure service Flashbots completed a $60 million Series B funding round at a valuation of $1 billion to develop the SUAVE platform. SUAVE (Single Unified Auction for Value Expression) separates the mempool and block generation from existing blockchains to form an independent blockchain network (sorting layer) and provides a highly specialized plug-and-play alternative【4】, aiming to address MEV-related challenges in infrastructure.
Although SUAVE is a new blockchain, it is not a general smart contract platform that can compete with Ethereum or any other participating chains. If Anoma is compared to building an intent-centric blockchain, then SUAVE constructs an intent-centric infrastructure.
Image source: SUAVE in the blockchain stack
Three Goals of SUAVE:
Illuminate the Dark Forest: Expose unfair events in the current opaque MEV ecosystem to every user, quantify their impact, and break down information barriers between participants.
Democratic Mining: Achieve integration between miners and searchers in an open manner, promoting competition among all parties to the maximum extent and making it freely accessible to all miners to prevent MEV integration and centralization.
Profit Distribution: Give MEV to those who create it—Ethereum users.
According to SUAVE's intent solution, when processing transactions from external sources (e.g., Ethereum), cross-chain settlement is required. It can be used to attempt to resolve various risks in the EVM, similar to the significant successes achieved by previously launched MEV-Geth and MEV-Boost decentralized solutions. However, it should be noted that users will deposit funds into SUAVE during the intent realization process, and the smart contracts on SUAVE will involve oracles for asset verification during the unlocking of funds once the demand is met. Therefore, to some extent, SUAVE will also face all the risks currently associated with cross-chain bridges.
From SCW and AA to SUAVE and Intent-Centric:
Reflecting on the "Account Abstraction AA" section above, consider the main functions brought by account abstraction: private key recovery, gas-free payments, multi-signature authorization, multiple transfers in a single transaction, fee rate limits, etc. In summary, account abstraction perfectly combines the advantageous functions of conventional accounts (EOA) and smart contract accounts (CA).
SUAVE's vision is to become a common sorting layer among various chains (including cross-chain transactions and MEV). Therefore, if user intent involves cross-chain asset transfers, the combination of account abstraction (AA) and multi-signature smart contract accounts (SCW) like Gnosis Safe, along with SUAVE's EVM solution, may theoretically be a relatively optimal solution.
CoWSwap
Image source: CoW Protocol
Introduction:
If we were to select the project closest to the Intent-Centric architecture, CoWSwap would undoubtedly rank high. Unlike other protocols, users only need to send a signed order to delegate the execution of the transaction to the solver network, completing the transaction within that network (without specifying an execution path). Meanwhile, off-chain signed orders will be executed after matching by the solver (similar but different from Bob Solver mentioned above). Due to the solver's "batch bundling" authority, gas fees during the process will be borne by the solver, and users will not need to pay if the transaction fails.
CoWSwap Hooks:
When discussing Hooks, do we think of Uniswap V4? However, the actual functionalities of the two are entirely different. CoW Hooks link transactions, bridging, staking, deposits, etc., and can execute before/after order execution in a single transaction.
Main Functions:
Pre-hooks can be used to "set" conditions for orders. For example, executing code required to verify on-chain signatures or setting the necessary approvals through EIP-2612.
Post-hooks execute after the exchange occurs and the receiving address receives funds. Post-hooks provide immediate opportunities to use funds, including through staking, providing liquidity, or bridging tokens to L2.
DeFi Examples of CoW Hooks:
Repaying debts and staking: Set pre-hook operations to repay debts and close positions, then use CoW Swap to exchange assets, and finally use post-hook operations to deposit the new assets into the staking vault.
Creating LP positions: Can use only pre-hook transactions or only post-hook transactions.
JIT (Just-In-Time) smart orders: Program Safe smart contract wallets through the composable CoW framework (ERC-1271) to execute custom smart contract approvals and exchanges.
NFT: Can sell or purchase NFTs using CoW Hooks functionality.
Cross-chain: Can send assets to bridging contracts through CoW Hooks to complete cross-chain transactions.
Airdrops: Can use CoW Hooks to sell airdrops without using ETH as gas.
Unlocking and re-staking: If a validator has staked 32 ETH, they can unbind to receive rewards, or they can re-stake assets on other chains through CoW Hooks.
Automatically increasing LP positions: For example, becoming a liquidity provider for the EUR - USDC pool on the Gnosis chain to earn GNO Token rewards. CoW Hooks can be used to automatically convert your GNO into EUR - USDC in a 50/50 ratio, thus automatically increasing your LP position.
dappOS V2
After discussing the intent layer and related infrastructure layers, let’s explore the dappOS V2 protocol, hailed as the "new wave of intent layer." On July 21, 2023, dappOS V2, valued at 50 million USD, completed seed round financing led by IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital (China), while also attracting attention from other major VC firms and Binance.
dappOS V2 is an intent protocol that references dappOS accounts and the dappOS network, aiming to simplify user interactions with dApps to achieve a CeFi-level user experience. At the same time, it eliminates the fragmentation barriers brought by multi-chain through "Chain Abstraction" technology (chain abstraction is similar to account abstraction).
Image source: Intent-Centric A Narrative worth keeping an eye
Whether for intent or transaction purposes, users' focus is always on the total amount in their funds account, rather than the individual asset balances across different chains. According to dappOS V2's understanding, there should be a unified account wallet to achieve the vision of "one signature completes everything," introducing a one-click multi-TXN (transaction record) design concept to remove barriers for users before completing TXNs, achieving user intent-oriented transaction goals.
For example, it can be used to interact with GMX across different chains like Arbitrum and Avalanche without having assets, thus achieving the foundational trading rules of future DeFi being intent-centric. Therefore, realizing the intent-centric concept requires involving chain abstraction, account abstraction, and more "protocol abstraction." However, one question needs to be considered: if various abstractions are realized, will the interaction rules of yield farmers and various project airdrop rules change accordingly?
Conclusion:
Intent is still fraught with risks and challenges during its execution, relying on intermediaries or specific executors, which can lead to concentration of power and monopolization risks, thus affecting the trust issues of the entire middleware. Additionally, the security and privacy risks associated with outsourcing transactions to third parties also deserve consideration. Whether intent application developers can balance security, privacy, and convenience is highly anticipated.
The concept of intent has already seen relatively mature applications in the Web2 domain, such as ride-hailing apps, ticketing apps, and navigation software. However, the success of these applications is built on a robust Web2 infrastructure. For mature application scenarios to emerge in the Web3 domain, we must wait for the continuous maturation of the industry. Intent-Centric is a grand concept that will involve all aspects of blockchain and is also one of the best paths for the integration of blockchain and AI. However, whether it can be developed and flourish remains to be seen.
References and Related Articles
【1】https://www.paradigm.xyz/2023/06/intents
【3】https://www.alchemy.com/overviews/what-is-a-mempool
【4】https://writings.flashbots.net/the-future-of-mev-is-suave/#iv-suave-in-the-blockchain-stack
https://news.marsbit.co/20230818082351362551.html
https://research.web3caff.com/zh/archives/11091?login=success\&ref=416
