Starting the Intent-Centric Ecosystem: What are the projects worth paying attention to?

In the ever-evolving Web3 landscape, a new approach to user interaction is rapidly evolving — Intent-Centric (Intent-Centric). Without losing autonomy, users only need to express what intents/requirements they want to get results. The complex paths and implementation processes involved are handled by protocols/third-party solvers.

Just like I want to buy a “far ahead” one now, I only need to fill in the name, address, and phone number in the e-commerce store to place an order, sign for the courier to get the actual product, and don’t have to worry about logistics and delivery. Or, like just saying “Help me summarize the Ethereum white paper in 1000 words” to ChatGPT, it can help you do it.

Intent-Centric enables today’s Web3 to greatly enhance user experience, composability, and privacy.

In terms of user experience , the essence of Intent-Centric is to simplify the user experience. By emphasizing “goals and results” rather than “process,” users are not exposed to complex interactive processes.

In terms of composability , protocol applications tailored to users’ intentions can achieve maximum compatibility, thereby cultivating a richer and more cohesive Crypto ecosystem.

From a privacy perspective, users can avoid disclosing details or data about themselves by simply expressing their intentions.

Just like the previous example of online shopping, in Web2, we can experience all kinds of smooth operation and minimal user experience design. However, in Web3, high user experience issues have become one of the major reasons preventing Web3 from being adopted on a large scale. Even the simplest swap requires complicated operations such as wallet creation and management, wallet connection, and contract signing. It may also be that the slippage is too high due to factors such as MEV and poor liquidity.

Therefore, the emergence of Intent-Centric, which disassembles user needs and helps with execution, is no accident. Instead, along with Account Abstraction (Account Abstraction), TGBot, and MPC wallets, which also aim to simplify the user experience, it continues to push the “large-scale adoption of Web3” narrative to a new level.

Intent-related infrastructure

account abstraction

Account abstraction is the last popular concept. It emphasizes that users should use more specific smart accounts to do more specific things.

Finalizing the ERC-4337 account abstraction, realizes smart accounts, provides more login methods, social recovery, etc., lowers the threshold for new users to enter Web3 applications, and allows new users to enter applications where they can express their intentions. In addition to this, the smart account’s bundled transactions, gas payment and other capabilities can also better implement Intent-Centric. If authorization is required for every interaction, this will inevitably lead to complicated and slow implementation of user intentions.

Therefore, smart accounts have the potential to become a true front-end entry point for Intent-Centric.

Leading wallet projects currently working to achieve account abstraction include: Safe Wallet, Biconomy, ZeroDev, Argent, Ambire, Sequence, etc.

AI

By integrating AIGC like Siri and ChatGPT into the wallet, users can express their intentions by talking to AI. This may be the final form of Intent-Centric. Moreover, AI built on a large number of large language models is also the most effective tool for deciphering user intent. Third-party solvers can only execute more clearly if the user’s intentions are deciphered. Bob the Solver, the winning project of this year’s ETHGlobal Paris hackathon, is a great example. Particle Network, an established MPC wallet, is also working on such projects.

Although the ideal is very full, there is still some distance from landing.

Looking at it now, it is difficult for AI to achieve 100% accuracy in capturing user intentions, and it is difficult for users to express more complex intentions. As an example, I expressed my intention to AI: mint an NFT in the XX NFT series based on an average price, but my account balance cannot be less than $5.

This sentence includes both explicit intent and implicit intention.

The explicit intention was to “mint an NFT, my balance cannot be less than $5,” which is a very clear indication of my intention.

Implicit intent is “based on average prices,” which is just a rough description of the intention. Obviously, AI must also understand and analyze the following questions:

• What is the average price?

• Which platforms do you refer to?

MEV

MEV (Miner Extractable Value) is a long-term challenge for DeFi, as miners use their positions at the expense of regular users, so users often face adverse outcomes.

However, achieving the user’s intentions requires outsourcing execution to the solver, so the MEV generated by transactions in Intent-Centric is also one of the issues that needs to be focused on.

Currently, both Essential and Flashbot SUAVE are trying to resolve this issue.

Intent-Centric infrastructure

Juvix

Juvix is a programming language designed by Anoma, an Intent-Centric public chain. Developers can use Juvix to easily implement application logic containing public, secret, and encrypted data.

Bob the Solver

Bob the Solver core is working on an AI solver and account abstraction wallet. The AI solver is equipped with a machine learning model that can classify user intent. For example, if a user expresses an intention to buy a particular NFT, the solver will accurately decipher that intention and find the best path to achieve the desired results. The solver then forwards the intent and best path to the account abstract wallet, which will execute the transaction according to the best path.

OkContract

OkContract created a “low level intent” standard to make it easier for developers to integrate transactions into any website/app.

Delegatable

Delegatable is a tool and framework for universal delegation on Ethereum, enabling users to delegate friends/third-party agents to perform actions on their behalf without having to pay gas fees or make transactions. Batch-processing of transactions by agents can reduce gas fees and improve efficiency.

DApps with specific intentions

It’s worth mentioning that Intent-Centric didn’t appear in Web3 after Paradigm published a research article; instead, agreements to execute user intentions have been around for a while. There are already many protocols or features with specific intentions in the different vertices of Web3.

As far as Web3’s oldest DeFi sector is concerned, users’ intentions are usually geared towards generating revenue and utility. Surrounding this intention, many DeFi dApps can be called precursors to the Intent-Centric narrative.

For example, the most familiar aggregators such as 1inch and Blur appeared to help users save the trouble of finding the best trading path and profit strategy. Users only need to enter their transaction intentions, the smart contract will arrange the best route, and they only need to make a final decision.

Another example is TGBots such as Unibot, which went viral a while ago. They cleverly turn complex on-chain operations into decisions within Telegram chat options. Users can select the corresponding options to perform operations that are complicated for new users, such as executing transactions, swiping airdrop interactions, and sniper opening.

However, with regard to issues such as MEV and transaction slippage, some new and old DeFi protocols are helping users with the intention of “better transactions,” for example,

• CowSwap, 1inch Fusion, UniSwapX: Off-chain matching, where the solver deals on the chain. Complex transactions do not require multiple gas fees, and failed transactions do not require gas fees.

• Seaport: Opensea’s fully decentralized alternative, off-chain matchmaking, on-chain transactions by solvers, and users can place orders without gas fees.

• Symmio: An intent-based on-chain peer-to-peer derivatives trading platform. When a user sends a transaction, all other users can see the transaction information, and if they accept the transaction, it becomes a counterparty/solver. There is no pool of funds involved in this process; what A earns is what B loses.

• BASED Markets: An on-chain trading platform based on the Symmio trading framework.

• BananaHQ: Using Intent-Centric, ERC-4337, and Zero-Knowledge Proof to build a smart wallet, lower the barrier for new users to enter Web3.

Universal solutions

The blockchain-centric architecture currently represented by Ethereum provides a key attribute: programmable settlement, which is sufficient to support simple dApps with specific intentions, but difficult to implement complex intentions. Some projects are creating generic solutions for Intent-Centric, providing the necessary attributes for any specific purpose dApp right from the start.

Anoma

Anoma is an Intent-Centric + privacy-preserving public chain for counterparty discovery, analysis, and multi-chain atomic settlement. It is suitable for building dApps that involve users issuing an unlimited number of complex intentions on top of it.

Anoma’s total financing scale is approximately US$57.8 million, of which it successfully completed Series A financing of 26 million US dollars in November 2021. The project valuation was about US$260 million at the time of Series A financing. Although Anoma is still in its early stages, its white paper dates back to 2018, and after years of incubation and evolution, Anoma is an absolute time and technology leader in the Intent-Centric field.

Anoma’s core workflow includes the following steps:

• User Interactions: Users can send transparent, private, or protected intentions to Anoma’s Intent Dissemination Network.

• Intent Gathering and Matching: Solvers in the network gather intent and perform balanced state transitions to achieve matching. For example, if a user chooses to exchange 1 Bitcoin for Ethereum, another user must reverse the transaction to achieve a balanced state transition.

• Transaction processing: The matched transaction is submitted to mempool, and the validator sends the block packaged by the proponent to the execution layer to complete execution and verify validity, and finally complete the status root update.

Anoma’s technical core includes Taiga (a private state transition framework integrated into the intent communication layer and matching layer), Typhon (cross-chain atomic transaction consensus mechanism), MASP (multi-asset shielding pool), Vamp-IR (arithmetic circuit language), and Juvix (programming language). From the beginning, it was used to build dApps with specific intentions, so when it comes to implementing Intent-Centric, Anoma is indispensable.

Essential

On September 21, Essential, which focuses on building Intent-Centric universal solutions, announced a $5.5 million seed funding round.

Essential’s solution is mainly divided into three parts. The first is to create a standard for users to express their intentions. By adopting this standard, no matter which chain, there will be a general framework for expressing and resolving intentions; second, an Ethereum standard for intent-oriented account abstraction. By using account abstraction, users will allow solvers to execute transactions to achieve their intentions; and finally, a new Intent-Centric blockchain.

Compared to Anoma and Essential directly creating a new public chain, DapPos and Particle Network have a new way of thinking, packaging existing dApps and becoming the intent layer of Web3.

DapPOS

In July 2023, DapPOS completed a seed funding round co-led by IDG Capital and Sequoia China, having previously received pre-seed funding from Binance Labs.

DapPOS is the first Web3 operation protocol and an Intent-Centric protocol. By providing a multi-chain smart account (unified account) DapPos Account and the solver network DapPos Network, and integrating more than 20 industry-leading dApps, DapPOS is as smooth as using commonly used apps when creating and managing wallets, experiencing different chain DApps, managing multi-chain assets, and making complex transactions.

For example, Xiaoming’s total balance in the DapPOS unified account is 100 USDC, of which 50 USDC is on the Ethereum chain and 50 USDC on the BNB Chain. Xiaoming only needs to sign once to confirm the transaction to use the total balance of 100 USDC on GMX on Arbitrum or Benqi on Avalanche. This is where DapPos Account and DapPOS Network come in. Users can use DapPos as easily as using a CEX transaction, and all the processes involved behind each transaction are executed by the solver.

When DapPOS V2 went live in early September, it was more than just a theoretical concept; Perpetual Protocol was the first to be integrated into it. More leading dApps will also be integrated in the future, such as Perpetual, Benqi, QuickSwap, KyberSwap, GMX, KuSwap, and Pangolin. Thanks to DapPOS, users can now use Perpetual Protocol, which was previously only offered at Arbitrum, across various chains such as BNB Chain, and users can use any token of their choice to settle gas fees.

Particle Network

Particle Network officially launched a V1 product at the end of October last year, a Wallet-as-a-Service (wallet-as-a-service) product based on MPC-TSS, and upgraded to an MPC+ account abstract wallet when ERC-4337 was launched. The highlight is that based on MPC’s secure key fragment management and execution environment, users can log in using a familiar Web2 method without worrying about the storage of private keys and mnemonics; at the same time, the wallet usage experience is improved based on account abstraction, such as unified gas fees, batch operations, etc.

In the 10 months since V1 was launched, hundreds of dApps of various types have integrated Particle Network’s products and services, including Xter.io and Hooked Protocol, ApeX, 1inch, CyberConnect, etc. basically cover the top programs of each track.

After the Intent-Centric concept became popular, Particle Network “continues to do things” and announced an upgrade to the new V2 version. As it introduced itself, Particle Network V2 will be an Intent-Centric based Web3 access layer.

Particle Network V2 built a solver network based on the existing MPC+ account abstract wallet and integrated hundreds of dApps, and added an AIGC to the wallet. Users only need to directly express their intentions to this AIGC, and the solver then calculates the best path from hundreds of dApps to execute according to the user’s intentions. Particle Network V2 is dedicated to implementing the final form of Intent-Centric mentioned earlier.

In summary, DapPOS is like the WeChat applet platform, abstracting the concept of public chains and interactive processes, so that users can simultaneously use dozens of dApps with different chains in one wallet; Particle Network V2 is more like ChatGPT. Users only need to talk and chat with AIGC, and AI will automatically help them complete complex transactions. Once the product is complete, both will play a huge role in attracting new Web3 users. Anoma and Essential, on the other hand, are more like iterating on the current Web3 to maximize Intent-Centric. Although there is still a long way to go, once mature and build a good developer and user ecosystem, it is expected to trigger a new round of explosive growth for dApps and start the next era of Web3.

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