Launching an Intent-Centric Wallet Infrastructure

An intent-centric wallet is a new paradigm that shifts the user interaction model from explicit transaction specification to declarative outcomes. Instead of manually setting gas fees, slippage, and complex DeFi routing, users express their desired end state—like "swap 1 ETH for the best possible amount of USDC." The wallet's infrastructure is responsible for interpreting this intent, finding an optimal execution path, and securely fulfilling it. This architecture fundamentally separates declaration from execution, enabling better UX, cost efficiency, and access to complex cross-domain opportunities.

The core technical stack consists of three primary layers. The User Interface & SDK captures the user's intent in a structured format, often using domain-specific languages or schemas. The Solver Network is a competitive marketplace of off-chain agents (solvers) that bid to fulfill the intent by finding the most efficient execution path across DEXs, bridges, and other protocols. The Execution & Settlement Layer, typically a smart contract or a set of them, receives the winning solver's transaction bundle, verifies it meets the intent's constraints, and atomically executes it on-chain. Key protocols in this space include Anoma, SUAVE, and essential infrastructure like the ERC-4337 account abstraction standard.

Designing the intent expression format is critical. It must be flexible enough to capture diverse user goals (swaps, limit orders, bridge-and-swap combos) yet constrained enough for solvers to compute efficiently. A common approach is to define intents as signed messages containing constraints (e.g., minimum output amount, deadline, allowed protocols) and signatures for verification. The infrastructure must standardize this format to ensure interoperability across different solvers and applications. For example, an intent schema for a swap might include fields for inputToken, outputToken, inputAmount, and a minOutputAmount constraint.

Integrating a solver network requires a mechanism for competition and verification. Solvers listen for posted intents, run proprietary algorithms to source liquidity and optimize execution, and submit bundles containing the transaction sequence and a bid (often a fee or a share of saved value). The infrastructure needs a settlement mechanism—like an auction contract—to select the best bundle. This contract must verify the bundle's outcome satisfies the original intent before payment is released. This design incentivizes solver competition on execution quality and cost, with the user benefiting from the best-found solution.

Security and user sovereignty are paramount. While solvers handle computation off-chain, the final execution must be verifiably trustworthy. This is achieved through cryptographic commitments and on-chain verification. The settlement contract acts as a trust-minimized arbiter, ensuring the executed transaction's effects align with the intent's constraints. Furthermore, the infrastructure should leverage account abstraction (ERC-4337) for features like session keys (allowing limited permissions for solver execution) and sponsored transactions, creating a seamless, gasless experience where the complexity of execution is entirely abstracted from the end user.

Launching this infrastructure involves deploying several smart contracts for account abstraction, intent settlement, and solver management, alongside off-chain services for intent propagation and solver coordination. Developers can start by forking existing open-source frameworks or building on SDKs like Rhinestone's for modular smart accounts or Candide's for ERC-4337. The end goal is a system where users experience blockchain interactions as simple declarations of intent, with a robust, decentralized backend handling the intricate details of optimal on-chain execution.

Building an intent-centric wallet infrastructure requires a robust technical foundation. The core prerequisite is proficiency in a modern programming language like TypeScript or Rust, as they are standard for interacting with blockchain protocols and building reliable backend services. You must also be comfortable with Node.js and a framework like Express.js or Fastify for constructing the API layer that will process user intents. A solid understanding of Ethereum fundamentals—including the EVM, JSON-RPC, and common standards like ERC-4337 for account abstraction—is non-negotiable, as these form the bedrock of most intent-based interactions.

Key dependencies include libraries for cryptographic operations and wallet management. For Ethereum-based systems, viem and ethers.js are essential for crafting and signing transactions. To handle the secure management of private keys or session keys, you will need a library like @noble/curves or @noble/hashes. For intent-centric architectures, integrating with a Solver Network or Intent Infrastructure Provider is critical; this often involves using SDKs from projects like Anoma, Essential, or PropellerHeads to parse user intents and source optimal fulfillment paths from the market.

A local development environment is crucial for testing. You should run a local Ethereum node using Hardhat or Anvil from Foundry to simulate blockchain state and transaction execution without cost. For managing dependencies and ensuring reproducible builds, use a package manager like npm or yarn with strict version pinning. Setting up a TypeScript configuration with strict type-checking and a linter like ESLint will prevent common errors and improve code quality as your infrastructure grows in complexity.

Finally, you need a plan for data persistence and off-chain computation. This typically involves setting up a PostgreSQL or Redis database to store user session states, pending intents, and transaction nonces. For monitoring and alerting, integrate with tools like Grafana and Prometheus from the start. The initial setup might seem extensive, but these core dependencies ensure your infrastructure is secure, observable, and ready to handle the asynchronous, multi-step nature of intent fulfillment.

An intent is a user's declarative statement of a desired outcome, such as "swap 1 ETH for the best possible amount of USDC on any DEX within the next hour." This contrasts with traditional transactions, where users must manually specify the exact execution path, sign it, and pay gas. Intents abstract away complexity, allowing users to focus on what they want, not how to achieve it. This model is foundational for improving user experience in Web3, reducing the need for deep technical knowledge and enabling more sophisticated, gas-optimized operations.

Solvers are the computational engines that fulfill user intents. They are specialized, often permissionless, actors who compete to find the optimal execution path. A solver's job is to interpret the intent, search across liquidity sources (like DEXs, bridges, and private market makers), simulate transactions, and propose a solution bundle. The winning solver is typically the one offering the best outcome (e.g., highest output amount) at a competitive fee. This creates a competitive marketplace for execution, aligning incentives for efficiency and better prices for the end user.

Account Abstraction (AA), as defined by standards like ERC-4337, is the enabling infrastructure for intent-centric wallets. It decouples the validation logic of an account from its transaction execution. An AA wallet is a smart contract account, not an Externally Owned Account (EOA). This allows for features essential for intents: sponsored transactions (where solvers pay gas), signature abstraction (enabling social recovery or multi-sig), and transaction batching (executing multiple actions from a single intent). AA provides the flexible, programmable account layer upon which intent systems are built.

Launching an intent-centric wallet infrastructure requires integrating these three components. The wallet front-end must capture user intents in a structured format, often using a domain-specific language or a set of predefined intent schemas. This intent is then broadcast to a network of solvers via a public mempool or a private order flow auction. The selected solver's solution is verified by the wallet's smart contract (the AA account) before execution. Key technical challenges include designing secure intent signing, preventing solver MEV extraction, and ensuring reliable settlement.

For developers, building with intents involves working with new standards and SDKs. The ERC-4337 Bundler is used to submit user operations to the network. Projects like Candide, ZeroDev, and Biconomy provide AA infrastructure kits. To handle intents, you can integrate with solver networks from protocols like Anoma, Essential, or PropellerHeads. A basic flow in code might involve creating a UserOperation (ERC-4337) that encapsulates a signed intent, having a bundler route it to solvers, and having a solver return a Solution struct containing the calldata for the AA wallet to execute.

The future of this stack points towards increased specialization and interoperability. We will likely see standardized intent formats (similar to intents.garden), reputation systems for solvers, and cross-chain intent propagation. For builders, the opportunity lies in creating more expressive intent languages, specialized solvers for niche markets (e.g., NFT arbitrage), or middleware that makes existing dApps intent-compatible. The shift to intents, powered by AA, represents a fundamental re-architecture of user interaction in crypto, moving the industry closer to a seamless, goal-oriented experience.

Declarative signing is a user-centric paradigm for blockchain interaction. Instead of approving a specific, low-level transaction (e.g., transfer 1 ETH to 0x...), users sign a high-level intent (e.g., "swap 1 ETH for the best price of DAI"). The wallet infrastructure, or a dedicated solver network, is then responsible for discovering the optimal path to fulfill this intent, constructing the necessary transactions, and submitting them for final user approval. This abstracts away blockchain complexity, enabling gasless experiences, MEV protection, and multi-step operations from a single signature.

The core architectural shift involves separating the signing client from the fulfillment engine. The client's job is to capture user intent, often via a structured schema, and produce a cryptographic signature over it. This signed intent object is then broadcast to a network. A typical intent structure in JSON might include fields like sender, deadline, nonce, and a constraints array defining the desired outcome, such as { "assetIn": "WETH", "amountIn": "1", "assetOut": "DAI", "minAmountOut": "3200" }. The signature is often an EIP-712 typed data signature for clarity and security.

On the backend, solvers compete to fulfill the intent. They listen for published intents, analyze on-chain liquidity across DEXs and bridges, and generate a fulfillment proof—a bundle of transactions that achieves the user's goal. Crucially, the user only signs the original intent, not these derived transactions. The solver submits the bundle, and the user's signature is validated against the original intent constraints by a verification contract on-chain before execution. This pattern is central to protocols like UniswapX, CowSwap, and Anoma.

Implementing this requires careful smart contract design for intent verification. A minimal IntentVerifier contract would have a fulfillIntent function that accepts the signed intent, the solver's transaction calldata, and proofs. It must:

• Recover the signer from the intent signature.
• Validate the signer has sufficient funds and the intent is not expired.
• Simulate or verify that the provided calldata, when executed, satisfies all constraints in the intent (e.g., final token balances).
• Execute the transactions on behalf of the user. Using a smart account (ERC-4337) as the signer enables sponsorship of gas fees by solvers.

For developers, key libraries are emerging. The EIP-712 standard is essential for structuring signable intents. For TypeScript/JavaScript wallets, viem and ethers.js provide utilities for signing typed data. On the solver side, frameworks like Flashbots SUAVE or EigenLayer's intent layer provide environments for decentralized fulfillment. When building, prioritize user security: intents must have strict deadlines and nonce management to prevent replay attacks, and the verification logic must be thoroughly audited to ensure solvers cannot steal funds while "fulfilling" an intent.

The end-user experience is transformative. A dApp can request a signature for a complex cross-chain swap with a single click. The wallet displays the human-readable intent for approval, not a confusing transaction hex. After signing, the user can wait for fulfillment notification without managing gas or slippage. This infrastructure is foundational for the next generation of intent-centric applications, moving us closer to a system where users declare outcomes and the network handles the execution logistics.

Building an intent-centric wallet infrastructure requires a phased approach. Start by integrating a robust intent solver network like Anoma, SUAVE, or Essential. This network will be responsible for interpreting user intents (e.g., "swap X for Y at best price") and finding optimal execution paths across decentralized exchanges and liquidity pools. Your wallet's primary role shifts from signing raw transactions to signing user-signed intents, delegating the complex routing and execution logic to specialized solvers.

Next, implement a secure intent signing interface within your wallet application. This involves creating user-friendly flows for intent expression, clear fee consent mechanisms, and secure off-chain signing using standards like EIP-712 for structured data. You must also integrate a transaction simulation step, leveraging services like Tenderly or OpenZeppelin Defender, to show users a preview of potential outcomes before they sign, a critical component for trust and safety in an intent-based model.

For production readiness, focus on solver reputation and fallback mechanisms. Not all solvers are equal; implement a system to score them based on execution success rate, cost efficiency, and latency. Your infrastructure should be able to reroute intents if a primary solver fails. Furthermore, consider implementing partial fill logic, where a large intent can be fulfilled across multiple solvers or blocks to improve success rates in fragmented liquidity environments.

The final step is user education and gradual rollout. Launch with a limited set of supported intents—such as simple token swaps or cross-chain transfers—to a beta user group. Collect feedback on the clarity of intent expression and the reliability of execution. Monitor key metrics: intent submission-to-fulfillment time, average cost savings versus traditional transaction bundling, and user retention rates for intent-based features versus classic transaction modes.

Looking ahead, the ecosystem is evolving rapidly. Keep an eye on emerging standards like ERC-4337 Account Abstraction, which can complement intent architecture by managing gas sponsorship and batch operations. Explore integrating verifiable delay functions (VDFs) or other cryptographic primitives for fair ordering in decentralized solver networks. The goal is to create a wallet that feels invisible, where user goals are met seamlessly through a secure, competitive backend marketplace of solvers.