The Future of On-Chain Commerce Requires Intent-Based Sessions

Users must manually bridge, swap, and deploy capital across dozens of chains and DEXs, paying gas and slippage at each step.

• Result: ~30-40% of a user's capital can be lost to inefficiencies on complex cross-chain trades.
• Opportunity Cost: Billions in liquidity remains trapped in isolated venues.

Users state a goal (e.g., "Get the best price for 100 ETH on Arbitrum"), and a network of solvers (like in CowSwap or UniswapX) competes to fulfill it.

• Key Benefit: Optimal routing across all liquidity sources (DEXs, private pools, bridges like Across).
• Key Benefit: MEV protection and cost predictability via batch auctions.

ERC-4337 and smart accounts enable temporary, limited-scope permissions, turning a one-off transaction into a programmable user session.

• Use Case: Grant a gaming dApp permission to perform specific actions for 24 hours without repeated signings.
• Foundation: Enables complex, multi-step intents (swap, bridge, stake) as a single user experience.

Intent-based systems separate the declaration (user) from execution (solver). This requires new infrastructure layers.

• Core Components: Shared sequencers (like Espresso), intent-centric rollups, and cross-chain messaging (LayerZero, CCIP).
• Outcome: Execution becomes a commodity, driving competition on price and speed for users.

Users no longer pay for failed transactions or overpay for suboptimal routing. Payment is based on value delivered.

• Model: Solvers extract value from MEV and liquidity spreads, paying users a rebate or charging a success-based premium.
• Impact: Aligns incentives; users get the best outcome, solvers are rewarded for efficiency.

Intents are the native language for AI agents and autonomous smart contracts. They express high-level goals for off-chain systems to fulfill.

• Example: An agent's intent to "hedge my portfolio if volatility spikes >50%" triggers a series of derivative positions.
• Scale: Enables billions of micro-transactions and economic events not feasible with manual signing.

A handful of dominant solvers (e.g., on CowSwap) can form implicit cartels, extracting maximal value from user intents. Decentralization becomes a facade.

• Risk: >80% of solver market share can be controlled by 2-3 entities.
• Impact: Users receive suboptimal execution, paying hidden costs in 'slippage' that is captured by the cartel.

Adversaries can flood the mempool with fake or copycat intents to manipulate solver algorithms and front-run legitimate transactions.

• Attack Vector: Spoofed intents distort market signals, causing solvers to execute on stale or manipulated liquidity.
• Precedent: Similar to PGA bots in Ethereum, but now targeting the intent abstraction layer itself.

Systems like Across and Anoma use commit-reveal schemes and solver reputation to mitigate trust. Intent authenticity and solver performance are provable.

• Mechanism: Users commit to intents cryptographically; solvers compete in a sealed-bid environment.
• Outcome: Breaks front-running, forces solvers to compete on execution quality, not latency.

Architectures must mandate permissionless solver participation and guaranteed intent inclusion, moving beyond whitelists.

• Model: Inspired by Ethereum's proposer-builder separation, creating a competitive execution market.
• Requirement: Force Inclusion lists or similar mechanisms ensure no user intent is censored or ignored.

Many 'intent' systems are just centralized off-chain matching engines with an on-chain settlement wrapper (e.g., early LayerZero designs).

• Risk: Single points of failure and opaque logic. The 'intent' is just an API call to a black box.
• Contradiction: Recreates the trusted intermediary problem that decentralized finance was built to solve.

The endgame is a shared sequencing layer for intents, where competition happens in a verifiable, on-chain environment. Think Espresso or Astria for generalized intents.

• Vision: A public mempool for intents with a decentralized sequencer set ordering them.
• Result: Eliminates centralized orchestration, enables verifiable fairness and solver accountability.