Many protocols in the crypto industry are adopting an intent-centric design. Instead of directly submitting transactions containing the full methodology of “how” an operation should be executed, users can express “what” their desired result should be.

This enhances user experience via chain abstraction and market efficiency as users can simply declare their preferred outcome while outsourcing the logic of achieving it to sophisticated actors. Notable examples of intent-based protocols include swap aggregators (e.g., limit orders on CowSwap and UniswapX) and cross-chain liquidity bridges.

Intent-centric Design

Connext, now rebranded as Everclear, has employed intents to facilitate cross-chain token swaps. Rather than dealing with the intricacies of pathfinding, bridging, and gas fee …