Quick Guide: Understanding the Intent-Centric Architecture that Prioritizes Outcomes

Intermediate1/7/2024, 8:27:39 AM
The architecture of "intent-centric protocols and infrastructure" simplifies the user experience threshold, allowing each user to merely express their intent, with various other protocols handling the intermediate processes, awaiting the ultimate outcome.

Foreword

Web3’s cumbersome user experience has been one of the reasons that blockchain has been hindered from being adopted on a large scale, and with the recent introduction of 10 potential trends in the crypto space by Paradigm, a well-known venture capitalist in Web3, the concept of “Intent-Centric protocols and infrastructures” was at the top of the list. When Paradigm introduced the organization’s 10 potential trends to the crypto space, it put “Intent-Centric Protocols and Infrastructure” at the top of the list, and the concept instantly caught the industry’s attention. It’s a design philosophy that centers intent around user needs. For example, “I want to order a 30$ burger takeout” is an “intent”, the user only needs to enter his name, phone number and delivery address on the delivery platform and place the order to fulfill this intention, without caring about the form in which the 30$ paid is earned by the merchant and how the platform assigns the riders and how the riders deliver the order to the home. This form of architecture greatly simplifies the user experience threshold, so that each user only need to express their own intentions, the intermediate process is handed over to a variety of other agreements, waiting for the final result. Note: This article is not for the project announcement, suitable for mass readers, the content is only for analysis reference.

Intent-Centric Design Principles

Generate context:

In the Web3 world, transaction is the most core function, no matter DeFi, GameFi, NFT or even any track concept can not be separated from the basic transaction. However, the reality is that the decentralised attribute of blockchain determines that different chains are all an independent island from each other, and we need to find a bridge linking them between different islands in order to complete asset exchange. While centralised trading provides a convenient experience for users to trade assets, countless Dapp applications still require wallet authorisation to swim one by one. In order to lower the experience threshold of decentralised applications, the Intent-Centric concept was born.

Though the inception of “intent” is not recent, the conceptual furore was sparked by Paradigm, so we’re borrowing their definition for reference: “By signing and sharing an intent, a user is effectively granting permission to recipients to choose a computational path on their behalf”. In practice signatures are dominated by the spontaneous intent of the user, but is it really possible to hand over assets to third party outsourcing in order to lower the barrier to use? The following section discusses what is involved in realising the Intent-Centric vision.

What is the intention:

Paradigm’s interpretation of the concept of intent is expressed in Intent-Based Architectures and Their Risks, published on 1 June 23rd.In the user’s regular transaction flow, the transaction signature allows the verifier to perform the verification execution according to a particular computation path, and the Gas fee for its process is used to incentivise the verifier to complete the computation.However, the intent does not explicitly refer specifically to a particular computational path, and it is sufficient for any path to complete the final result while satisfying specific constraints.In practice by signing and sharing an intent, the user is effectively allowing the recipient to choose out the transaction execution path on their behalf (as below), and to distinguish it from the transaction we define an intent as a message signature that allows state transitions from a given starting state to retrieve multiple paths to reach the final state result [1].

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image1.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

image source:Intent-Based Architectures and Their Risks — Paradgim

As shown above, a clear execution path needs to be specified when submitting a transaction, e.g. Token exchange at Uniswap, but when submitting an intent the execution path is determined by the matching result.For the user only need to put forward their own intention, the other by the Intent-Centric protocol/application to complete, that is, matching the execution path, briefly described the execution of the operation as Solver is responsible for matching the intention of the execution of the path, and finally waiting for the final execution and get the results can be.

In short: Transaction = I specify the implementation to do so; Intent = I want the result but am not concerned with the process of achieving it.Intentions with different preferences can be matched in a complex way, and this process requires “counterparty discovery” and “solver solving”.

Bob,the Intent Solver

image source:ETH Global

Bob the Solver(Hereafter, we refer to solvers collectively but not specifically to Bob Solver.)It is an intent-based transaction infrastructure whose main purpose is to simplify the operational process, lower the threshold of user participation, integrated participation in wallets and decentralised applications, essentially creating and executing the user’s outsourced transactions, and whose implementation consists of two main associative components:

  • Solver for creating transactions: Composed of an AI chatbot + Intent Classification + Transaction Optimisation, it is responsible for achieving the optimal execution path of user’s intents and sending them to the AA wallet, and the solver is equipped with a Machine Learning (ML) model for classifying user’s intents;
  • Abstract Account Wallet for Transaction Execution: AA wallet system using the EIP-4337 standard, consisting of a Bundler and a Paymaster, integrated with a solver to simplify the transaction process.

Intent Layers and Solvers

Is it possible to build out a separate intent layer and have solvers compete for the solution? While theoretically achievable, the reality is that implementation is very difficult.We need to focus on Anoma, SUAVE (see below for details) as a solution to the core MEV problem.In order to realise Intent-Centric’s visionary goal of packaging transactions to a third party for completion, what features are required to securely complete the asset transfer?

1.trustworthy:

In order to achieve trustworthy and decentralised blockchain features, it may not be sufficient to assume the existence of a simple “intent network”, which would not be able to deliver on user and solver guarantees of intent.Because the user will have the specific cost of each execution path calculated by Sovler after indicating his intention, and because Sovler will be bound by the regulation set by the user, the user needs to know that each execution path is trustworthy;

2.private:

The complex nature of the solver to provide an optimal execution path for the user will inevitably be subject to hacking to steal assets or obtain user information, while most of the time the user’s on-chain activity information will be exposed to observers, in order to ensure the security of the user’s information needs to be encrypted or hidden at least part of the important information, but in the blockchain to achieve the privatisation of computable information is very difficult;

3.Expression of intent:

Intent is an abstract concept, there seems to be a similar problem with the way users express their intent to the blockchain and the way users ask questions to the AI; what should I say to it so that it understands what I am trying to say? If some expresses some ambiguous intention, does the solver incur more Gas cost in choosing the execution path, an efficient and accurate parser is the key to realising the intention;

4.Maintaining Consistency of Intent and MEV:

Taking SUAVE as an example of a standalone blockchain that solves the EVM reality problem, when it processes Ether intent it needs to perform cross-chain settlement, similar to the huge success of MEV decentralised solutions such as MEV-Geth and MEV-Boost, which have been launched to satisfy cross-chain MEV needs with a fairer and more transparent transaction processing mechanism;

5.Anti-censorship:

Based on Paradigm’s explanation, it is easy to see that there is a central issue, which is that there should not be a single AI-capable parser, such as a single parser that is attacked or deactivated, leading to a bad situation where the whole system goes down, and whether there are problems with parsers that refuse to execute, execute incorrectly, and so on, which Anoma may be able to address in the following section;

6.Competitive nature of solvers:

Different users will have different intentions, and solvers will contain multiple transaction classes, such as exchange, cross-chain, pledge, etc. There will be no competition between single solvers, as solvers will only be able to collect fees when settling on-chain. Is it possible to maintain competition between solvers by allowing the solvers responsible for different transaction classes to be reasonably redistributed or optimising the parser algorithm so that every valid address is eligible to become a solver to successfully participate in the Mempool, thus improving the quality of transaction execution;

7.Intended Memory Pool:

Paradigm proposes three new Mempool solutions:

Permissionless Intentpools: an open design allows anyone to submit intent to a memory pool and provides permissionless access to the executor;

Permissioned Intentpools: Require permissions to submit and execute user intents and allow users to pass them to a trusted third party to execute on their behalf;

Hybrid Solutions: combines the above two memory pool features, aiming to achieve a balance between openness and control.

Elements required to fulfil the intent

Account Abstract (AA)

A quick recap: there are two types of accounts in EtherCenter: EOA externally owned accounts and CA contract accounts. The difference is that the former can initiate transactions, while the latter can’t but can host Solidity code, and most of the accounts we use now are EOA accounts. In addition, there is also Gonsis Safe, a multi-signature smart contract account (SCW). The contract account mentioned just now cannot initiate transactions, so it is necessary to use the EOA to start the SCW, so that the EOA can only be responsible for signing the transaction, while the smart contract can execute any logic, which can develop countless new application scenarios while enhancing the security of assets.

The implementation of the Intent Layer requires account abstraction (for reasons explained in the SUAVE section below), and EIP-4337 consists of six parts: UserOperation, Bundler, EntryPoint, Wallet Factory, Paymaster, and Signature Aggregator. Signature Aggregator) consists of six parts. The brief operation flow is as follows:

  • Initiating a user operation, i.e. executing the transaction;
  • Send the operation to the P2P “UserOperation Mempool” and have the bundler “bundle” the executed signatures, gas fees, and other user operation transaction content and submit it for uploading (in practice, this includes a variety of scenarios not discussed here). The bundler “bundles” the contents of the user operation transactions, such as signatures, gas fees, etc., and submits them for uploading (in practice, this includes a variety of scenarios that will not be expanded here);
  • The bundler sends the “bundle” to the entry contract for processing, and may optionally use a signature aggregator to check for legitimacy;
  • The portal contract pre-sends the transaction to the wallet contract or to the payment contract;
  • Payment in lieu contracts can be of various types depending on the project’s business logic, which will not be expanded here for the sake of simplicity【2】.

image source:ETH Global

Smart contract wallets are undoubtedly the biggest players in account abstraction, and the main competing forces are Gnosis Safe, a multi-signature wallet, and Candide, which focuses on building a smart contract wallet that is fully compatible with EIP-4337. Through the analysis of the above chart, it is easy to find that account abstraction utilizes bundler+payment in lieu of contract to fulfill the “narrow” intention suitable for developers, while Paradigm utilizes Solver+AI to fulfill the “broad” intention suitable for mass users. The concepts of “abstraction” and “intent” could not be more appropriately placed within the same track, both of which have a magical notion of order in the midst of chaos.

Intended programmability

According to Researcher@tmel0211, the programmability of intent can be summarized as follows: if the intent is not programmable, the program is not executable, automation is not possible, and there is no way to talk about intelligence. How to understand, intent is a human thought expression which itself has an abstraction containing emotional factors, and accept it is a string of cold code and algorithms, like my intention is to make money, code and algorithms how to help me find the path of execution of the intention?Intent-Centric is not a brand new concept, but is based on the current existing simplified intent design, for this purpose Organize the existing Intent-Centric projects and concepts.

Projects with known representation:

  • UniswapX : off-Chain extension program intent
  • CowSwap : off-Chain extension solution intent
  • 1inch : Fusion order matching off-Chain + Multi-DEXAggregator
  • Solv Protocol : New ERC3525 standard to realize complex financial intent
  • Unibot : Centralized server background preset parameters, rules and other automationintent
  • Opensea : Off-Chain Signature + On-Chain Contract Combination Completion

The concept of known representativeness:

  • ERC3525 Standard : Proposed by Solv Protcocol, it aims to provide a semi-quantitative asset standard that can describe digital assets in a more structured way to meet the needs of various application scenarios;
  • Abstract Account Account Abstraction : Provides a set of standardized account management interfaces for abstracting the underlying implementation complexity of different types of accounts, free of Gas, social recovery, etc;
  • MPC Wallet: with private key slicing technology, the private key is divided into multiple copies and stored on multiple independent nodes. When performing operations such as transactions, these nodes work together to generate signatures through a secure multi-party computing protocol without having to re-constitute the full private key.

In summary both representative projects or concepts are a series of more complex instructions to allow users to achieve a more simplified experience, if the above is divided into four categories:

  • Centralized INTENT.

Centrally based resource aggregation and matching platforms such as Unibot and other bot trading CEX trading, Friend.tech, etc;

  • Structuredintent.

Based on smart contract or agent contract combination, on-chain + off-chain preprocessing combination, new ERC standard and other pre-set parameters adapted to EVM virtual machine execution;

  • Distributed intent:

Based on the new blockchain architecture such as Solver+Executor which does not need to be distributed, a new marketplace can be constructed to execute the complex intentions of users; \

  • Intelligent INTENT:

Based on AIGC as the carrier of input+outcome, the AI through DeFi’s full-area training can program users’ complex intents and execute the output.

image source : Researcher@tmel0211

MEV

Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) means that a miner can add, delete, or rearrange trades in order to obtain additional revenue rewards, such as DEX arbitrage, Fornt-Running, Back-Running, Liquidation, Snipping bots, Time-bandit attacks, Sandwich attacks, etc. This is detrimental to the rights and interests of users who normally use DeFi. Snipping bots, Time-bandit attacks, Sandwich attacks, etc., which harms the rights of normal DeFi users. Expanding on this, transactions on Ether are based on Gas to allow miners to order transactions, high Gas is prioritized for packet processing, low Gas is processed slowly, transactions are first submitted to the Mempool memory pool [3], waiting to be included in the block, the verifier extracts transactions from the memory pool and adds them to the next block at build time, and since the memory pool is public, the searcher has the opportunity to order transactions in a specific way by paying the verifier a fee for the transaction. The searcher has the opportunity to pay a fee to order transactions in a specific way and extract value from the user by ordering them, thus the MEV miner value. Realizing the user’s intent requires handing over the transaction to a third party for outsourced processing, so the MEV generated by the transaction in the Intent-Centric architecture is also one of the issues to focus on.

The most intuitive impact of MEV: harming the entire network while competition makes the market more efficient.

  • Uneven distribution of capital (big players have more ETH chips) may lead to the centralization of validators (larger pledge pools get higher MEV returns) to reduce the overall security of the network, and even though mitigating means have emerged to produce some effect, the risk of centralization due to block building rights cannot be completely eliminated at present;
  • To increase the likelihood of transactions being packaged, MEVs competing with each other for searchers gain priority by bidding for Gas, which can cause the public memory pool to become network congested due to high Gas fee transactions by searchers, but at the same time DEX arbitrage and lending and borrowing clearing can help the DeFi market reach equilibrium more quickly to maintain market stability.

MEV is an important topic that the industry has been exploring for many years, and how to mitigate the disadvantages of MEV is also being explored, which will be explained in the next section, “General Solutions to Realize Intent”. According to EigenPhi’s data as of September 15, 2013, there is still a large amount of room for revenue from MEVs on the chain, and after the Ether merger, only the block nodes that use Flashbots have made more than 200,000 ETH, so this is a huge piece of cake for the distribution of benefits.

image source:EigenPhi | MEV Data

Cross-chaining, sequencers and oracles

Intent-Centric is a huge system architecture, according to Paradigm’s explanation, the content of Intent-Centric will involve the whole blockchain field, all kinds of Layer1 and different Layer2 between the huge asset transfer should be passed to the intention to facilitate the processing. Nowadays, the development of the industry has brought us to an era of multiple chains, each chain is an island between them, but there will be different bridges between the islands, so the cross-chain and sequencer are also necessary bridges to fulfill the intent.

Based on the current prosperity of the Ethernet Layer2 ecosystem, the four mainstream recognized kings: Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Starkware each show their own Layer3, OPstack and ZKstack corresponding narrative. The common problem faced by Layer2 at the moment is the centralized sequencer problem, although we are actively looking for a viable solution, but the reality is that there is a huge cake hidden here, take OPstack as an example, we can take its profit model as a simple “rental store” to understand, Layer2’s profits = Layer2’s profit = Layer2’s gas income + MEV income — Layer1’s gas expenses. If we want to realize the intended purpose, the toll between Layer2 and Layer1 is indispensable.

The topic came to the cross-chain bridge, the current Layer2 boom let us early recognize the considerable profits of the sequencer, but the profits of the cross-chain should not be underestimated, the cross-chain is to open up the bridge between the different chain silos is essential, as one of the infrastructures of the current bear market environment in addition to meet the cross-chain of the normal trading user needs, the jerking off the party for the airdrop of the expectations of the cross-chain demand is still a practical existence of the market demand. The demand for cross-chain is still a real market demand. The ever-expanding Dapps application will also gradually eat into the profits from the convenient centralized exchanges. However, it is worth noting that the problem is the security of the cross-chain bridge, according to hacked.slowmist official data, in the two-year period from the start of June 29, 21 to September 16, 23, the cross-chain bridge ecosystem has a total of 38 public security incidents, the cumulative damage to the financial as much as 2 billion U.S. dollars. In summary, the realization of the intention involves an unavoidable Gas cost, but this paper does not discuss the security of the sequencer and cross-chain for the time being, although it is a problem that deserves our focused attention.

image source:hacked.slowmist

The topic comes to Oracle, in a macro perspective the strong financial attributes of the blockchain leads it to be a systematic environment in pursuit of certainty, even though RWA’s narrative has been talked about for years, the reality is that the blockchain can’t access real world data outside the chain but only inside the chain, because the virtual machine (VM) can’t allow smart contracts to have a Network Call (Network Call), so the operation of the smart contracts have to be consistent results, so the data is also closed to the outside world. The result must be consistent, so the blockchain data is also closed to the outside world.

Let’s zoom in and take a microscopic view. Predictors are an important element in the DeFi world, and while the security of the different protocols is usually inherited by the underlying smart contract network, its proper functioning is still dependent on the predictor, and if the predictor of a protocol is attacked or corrupted, then the entire protocol can be manipulated. Today, DeFi prefers to define itself as “Primitives” and wants more teams to build products or combine protocols on top of them, but the new DeFi contracts derived from this iterative process will upgrade their own operation logic in order to host a larger ecosystem, which also brings some external This also brings some external dependencies and unforeseen risks.

Over the years, the DeFi space has seen billions of dollars in cumulative thefts, such as the hack of the Euler Finance lending protocol in March of this year, which resulted in a loss of up to $200 million. It allows users to post collateral and borrow money, and its problem occurs when a specific function is in place and there are no security checks on it, enabling users to break fundamental invariants in the lending market (e.g., the fundamental invariant in UniSwap: tokenBalanceX * tokenBalanceY == k). Derivatives protocols that also rely on prognosticators for pricing that lack internal price discovery mechanisms are susceptible to price lags without updates, severely limiting their scale and user experience, which explains exactly why trader Avraham Eisenberg was able to successfully attack Mango Markets and siphon off $116 million from the cryptocurrency trading platform.

In conclusion, the dark laws of the blockchain forest are generally fraught with unknown risks, and there is still a long way to go to realize the vision of an Intent-Centric architecture.

image source:Chainalysis

Aggregators and Gas

Aggregators emerged as a direct result of the need to save users the trouble of searching for optimal trading paths and return strategies, and include a wide range of aggregator types, such as: trading aggregators, information aggregators, return aggregators, liquidity aggregators, asset management aggregators, etc. Intent-Centric architectures require a certain degree of centralization, and the various types of aggregators may facilitate the execution paths of the parsers in their search for intent. The Intent-Centric architecture requires a certain degree of centralization, and the various aggregators may facilitate the parser’s path through the intent search process, giving a certain degree of “reference answers”.

Gas is a necessary toll to execute all kinds of transactions, how to optimize the Gas fee is also one of the industry’s clichéd topics, at present, the overall situation is centered around the product side, the account abstraction wallet, DeFi protocol to do optimization, the future will be able to combine the aggregator, the account abstraction, the DeFi protocol, the three from a completely new product-side point of view to optimize the effect of Gas, let’s wait and see. We’ll see.

Wallet Authorization

The first step of Dapps interaction: wallet authorization, let’s return to the transaction itself, the Intent-Centric architecture aims to simplify the transaction and reduce the threshold of the user, but each intended transaction involves countless authorization signatures, how to securely and conveniently solve the authorization problem is also a problem that needs to be considered, perhaps the account abstraction and the following dappOS V2 is a good solution. perhaps account abstraction and the following dappOS V2 is a good set of solutions.

Generic solutions for realizing intent

Anoma

image source:Anoma

Synopsis:

According to a report by Coindesk on 5/31/23, Anoma Foundation has successfully completed an investment of $25 million from CMCC Global, Electric Capital, and 14 other capitals. The project’s architecture for intent was already proposed in a whitepaper published in August 22: Intent Gossip Layer The Intent Propagation Layer is used to propagate intent, discover counterparties and match execution paths. It is designed to be the default verification path, and all its Gossip messages are signed by the sender node, thus forming a signature chain that can be traced back to the initiator. This feature is especially important in the anti-censorship and Dos, so when it comes to the implementation of Intent-Centric, Anoma is a must-have.

Anoma initially developed and used a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus mechanism based on Tendermint, and then moved to an alternative PoS Proof of Stake consensus mechanism “ Typhon “ developed by Heliax to allow for consensus partitioning between independent chains. The project team has developed Taiga, Typhon, MASP, Vamp-IR, Juvix, and other multi-party technologies to drive cryptography and distributed systems experimentation.

Continuing from the “Intent Programmability” paragraph above, programmable algorithmic structures and counterparty discovery are indispensable features to realize the architectural vision of Intent-Centric, which needs to be built on top of multi-interactive and multi-application, and so Anoma, a unified architecture for full-stack decentralized applications, is introduced to co-construct the decentralized application paradigm.

image source:Anoma

Design architecture and its innovations:

  • Privacy Payments

To protect user privacy and prevent others from collecting data retrospectively, the sender, receiver, amount, and asset denomination are encrypted, and the transfer of funds is guaranteed through zero-knowledge proof zk-SNARKs, which are unique in allowing all assets to share the same MASP to provide combinable asset protection increasing the user’s anonymity set, rather than each asset being masked individually. The more participants the more assets are transferred more frequently, which dramatically increases the level of anonymity of asset transfer data;

image source:Delphi Digital — Delphi Creative

  • Bartering

Barter” exchange programs are repeatedly emphasized in this project, and the core idea is derived from the ancient practice of bartering. Simply put, it is a bartering program that does not require a medium of exchange, does not involve the receipt of cash, and requires at least a double coincidence for the participants to be able to trade successfully: one is that the two parties happen to have something that the other party wants, and the other is that both parties are transferring the convenience of the transaction. In this way, it helps the user to pass to the node operator at the intent propagation layer and the matching node operator that runs a check on the compatibility of these intents in order to create and match the relevant transactions and send the corresponding book of executed transactions.Anoma implements a digital bartering program that facilitates the trading of goods, services, or digital representations of value;

  • Intent Matching System

In an Ethernet EVM, where transactions do not mandate a future state but rather authorize a specific execution path, Anoma includes a matching system that allows users to broadcast the intent of a transaction using Gossip. Simply put, Anoma consists of two main components: a distributed ledger and an intent matching system, which complement each other or work independently to help users automatically discover counterparties by using Intent Gossip to run a node, a token exchange solver, and an RPC server requesting new intents and submitting transactions from the matched intents to the distributed ledger;

  • Multi-chain support

Anoma uses the Cosmos ecosystem’s Interchain Communication IBC protocol for inter-blockchain communication, which utilizes repeaters to enable data transfer between different blockchains and is intended to be a multi-chain privacy layer. Currently although repeaters are usually run by node operators, anyone with the ability to do so can run them and earn fees in the process;

  • Fractal Scaling Scaling Solution

Anoma uses a fractal solution to address blockchain scalability by allowing users to create local instances for other transactions. Fractal refers to dividing Anoma into different application chains to handle different tasks, allowing each Anoma application chain to be highly customizable thus scaling and responding to user growth (similar to the support of the IBC protocol to reach scaling purposes), and its security will be enhanced in the future by the ⅣInterchain Security, ⅣMesh Security, Ⅳ The security will be enhanced by the IV Interchain Security, IV Mesh Security, and IV Interchain Alliance programs.

SUAVE

Synopsis:

According to July 25, 23, Flashbots, an Ethernet infrastructure service, closed a $60 million Series B funding round at a $1 billion valuation for the development of the SUAVE platform.SUAVE (Single Unified Auction for Value Expression) separates memory pooling and block generation from the existing blockchain thereby forming a a layer of independent blockchain network (sorting layer) and provides a highly specialized plug-and-play alternative [4], aiming to address the infrastructure of MEV-related challenges.

While SUAVE is a new blockchain, it is not a generalized smart contract platform that can compete with Ether or any other participating chain. If Anoma is compared to building an intent-centric blockchain, then SUAVE is building an intent-centric infrastructure .

image source:SUAVE in the blockchain stack

SUAVE’s three goals:

  • Illuminate the dark forest: expose to every user the unfair events of the current opaque MEV ecosystem, quantify their impact and break down the information barriers between participants;
  • Democratic mining: to achieve integration between miners and retrievers in an open way, promoting competition between all parties in a way that maximizes restrictions and is free to all miners, in order to prevent MEV integration and centralization;
  • Distribution of benefits: handing over the MEV to the people who created it — the users of the Ether.

According to SUAVE’s intent solution, cross-chain settlement is required when dealing with transactions from the outside (Ether, for example), and it can be used to try to solve the various types of risks in EVMs, as in the case of MEV decentralized solutions such as MEV-Geth and MEV-Boost that have been launched with great success. However, it should be noted that in the process of realizing the user’s intention to deposit funds into SUAVE, and in the process of unlocking the funds when the demand is resolved, the smart contracts on SUAVE need to be verified for the asset and will involve a prophecy machine, so to a certain extent SUAVE will also be exposed to all the risks of the cross-chain bridges that are in place today.

From SCW with AA to SUAVE with Intent-centric:

Looking back at the “Account Abstraction AA” section above, and thinking about the main features that account abstraction brings: private key retrieval, gas-free payments, multi-signature authorization, multiple transfers for a single transaction, rate limiting, etc., account abstraction in general is a perfect combination of the advantages of both regular accounts (EOAs) and smart contract accounts (CAs).

SUAVE’s vision is to become a common sorting layer between all kinds of different chains (including cross-chain transactions and MEVs), so if the user’s intention is to involve cross-chain asset transfers, Account Abstraction (AA) and multi-signature Smart Contract Accounts (SCW) such as Gonsis Safe combine the advantages of both sides, and combined with SUAVE’s EVM solution may be a set of better theoretical solution in theory.

CoWSwap

image source:CoW Protocol

Synopsis:

If we were to pick the project that is closest to the Intent-Centric architecture, CoWSwap could certainly be at the top of the list. Its protocol is different from other protocols in that the user transaction only needs to send out a signature order, delegate the execution of the transaction to the solver network, and complete the transaction in that network (no need to specify the execution path), and at the same time, the off-chain signature order will be executed due to the solver matching (similar to but different from Bob Solver above), due to the solver’s “batch bundling “ right so the Gas cost of the process will be borne by the solver transaction fails without payment.

CoWSwap Hooks:

Talking about Hooks does it remind us of Uniswap V4? But the actual use of the two functions are very different, CoW Hooks is a series of transactions, bridges, pledges, deposits, etc., which can be executed before / after the execution of the order and the execution of the transaction in the form of a single transaction ordering.

Primary Function:

  • Pre-hooks can be used to “set up” conditions for an order. For example, executing the code required to validate an on-chain signature, or setting up required approvals through the EIP-2612 license;
  • Post-hooks are executed after the exchange has occurred and funds have been received by the receiving address. Post-hooks provide immediate access to funds, including through collateralization, provision of liquidity, bridging tokens to L2, etc.

Example of DeFi for CoW Hooks:

  • Debt Repayment and Pledge: Set the Pre-Peg operation to Debt Repayment and Flat Position, then use CoW Swap to exchange the assets, and finally use the Post-Peg operation to deposit the new assets into the Fixed Position Vault;
  • Creating LP Positions: either use pre-linked transactions only or post-linked transactions only;
  • JIT (Just-In-Time) Smart Orders: program Safe smart contract wallets to perform customized smart contract approvals and swaps via the composable CoW framework (ERC-1271);
  • NFTs: NFTs can be sold or bought within the CoW Hooks feature;
  • Cross-chain: Cross-chain transactions can be accomplished by sending assets to bridge contracts via CoW Hooks;
  • Airdrops: Airdrops can be sold using CoW Hooks without the need to use ETH as gas;
  • Unlocking and Repledging: Verifiers who have pledged 32 ETH can unbind to receive rewards, or repledge assets on other chains using CoW Hooks;
  • Automatic increase of LP positions: assuming that one becomes a liquidity provider in the EUR — USDC pool at the Gnosis chain in order to receive GNO Token rewards. You can use CoW Hooks to automatically convert your GNOs to EUR — USDC through CoW Swap at a 50/50 ratio to automatically increase your LP position.

dappOS V2

After discussing the Intent Layer and related infrastructure layers, let’s explore the dappOS V2 protocol, which has been dubbed the “New Wave of the Intent Layer”. dappOS V2, valued at up to $50 million, closed a seed round of funding on July 21, ’23, co-led by IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital (China), and received attention from other big VCs and Coinsafe. At the same time it also received attention from other big VC organizations and CoinSecurity .

dappOS V2 is an intentional protocol that references dappOS accounts and the dappOS network in order to simplify user interaction with dApps to achieve a CeFi level user experience. It also removes the fragmentation barrier of multiple chains through the “Chain Abstraction” technology (Chain Abstraction is similar to Back-Of-Account Abstraction).

image source:Intent-Centric A Narrative worth keeping an eye

Whether for intentional or transactional purposes, the user’s focus is always on the total amount of money in the account, not on individual asset balances between different chains. According to the understanding of dappOS V2, there should be a unified account wallet to achieve the intent vision of “One Signature Does It All”, and the concept of one-click multiple “TXN (Transaction)” design is introduced, which is used for The concept of one-click multi-”TXN (Transaction)” was introduced as a way to clear the hurdles for users to complete their TXNs and achieve intent-driven transactions.

For example, it is borrowed to realize the interaction with GMX between different chains of Arbitrum and Avalanch in the absence of assets, thus achieving the intention-centered transaction law that will be the basis of DeFi in the future. So realizing the concept of intent-centricity needs to involve chain abstraction, account abstraction and more “protocol abstraction” . But here’s a question to consider: assuming that all types of abstractions are realized, will the laws of interaction for jerky users and the rules of airdrops for all types of projects change?

Summary:

Intent is still full of risks and challenges in its execution process, it needs to rely on intermediaries or specific executors, so there is a risk of concentration of rights and monopolization, which affects the trust of the whole middleware. Secondly, the security and privacy risks associated with handing over the transaction to a third party for execution are also worth considering, and it is worth looking forward to see whether Intent application developers can strike a balance between security, privacy, and convenience.

The concept of Intent has mature applications in Web2, such as taxi software, ticketing software, map navigation, but the success of these applications is based on the sound foundation of Web2 infrastructure, such as the need for mature application scenarios in the field of Web3 need to wait for the industry to continue to mature. Intent-Centric is a grand concept, which involves all aspects of the blockchain, as well as the blockchain, and is also a key element of the blockchain. Intent-Centric is a grand concept that involves all aspects of blockchain, and is also one of the best paths for blockchain to combine with AI, but whether it can develop and flourish on the ground still requires our continued attention.

About YBB

YBB is a web3 fund dedicating itself to identify Web3-defining projects with a vision to create a better online habitat for all internet residents. Founded by a group of blockchain believers who have been actively participated in this industry since 2013, YBB is always willing to help early-stage projects to evolve from 0 to 1.We value innovation, self-driven passion, and user-oriented products while recognizing the potential of cryptos and blockchain applications.

Website | Twi: @YBBCapital

Explanation and References:

【1】https://www.paradigm.xyz/2023/06/intents

【2】https://mirror.xyz/0x7333aB7AE068Ef92fb77A2bcab32FA273c45185c/ozUKb4RdhqB4ya49uw_OfMHILiZpDBV99eosD9gfumU

【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://medium.com/metaweb-vc/account-abstraction-and-suave-how-far-are-we-from-an-intent-centric-ethereum-907e30804880

https://news.marsbit.co/20230818082351362551.html

https://ring-echidna-74e.notion.site/2023-09-14-Intent-centric-_Haotian-CryptoInsight-26795d3ac3b8493293b18f354fe898c2

https://research.web3caff.com/zh/archives/11091?login=success&ref=416

Disclaimer:

  1. This article is reprinted from [medium]. All copyrights belong to the original author [YBB Capital Researcher Ac-Core]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
  2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
  3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.

Quick Guide: Understanding the Intent-Centric Architecture that Prioritizes Outcomes

Intermediate1/7/2024, 8:27:39 AM
The architecture of "intent-centric protocols and infrastructure" simplifies the user experience threshold, allowing each user to merely express their intent, with various other protocols handling the intermediate processes, awaiting the ultimate outcome.

Foreword

Web3’s cumbersome user experience has been one of the reasons that blockchain has been hindered from being adopted on a large scale, and with the recent introduction of 10 potential trends in the crypto space by Paradigm, a well-known venture capitalist in Web3, the concept of “Intent-Centric protocols and infrastructures” was at the top of the list. When Paradigm introduced the organization’s 10 potential trends to the crypto space, it put “Intent-Centric Protocols and Infrastructure” at the top of the list, and the concept instantly caught the industry’s attention. It’s a design philosophy that centers intent around user needs. For example, “I want to order a 30$ burger takeout” is an “intent”, the user only needs to enter his name, phone number and delivery address on the delivery platform and place the order to fulfill this intention, without caring about the form in which the 30$ paid is earned by the merchant and how the platform assigns the riders and how the riders deliver the order to the home. This form of architecture greatly simplifies the user experience threshold, so that each user only need to express their own intentions, the intermediate process is handed over to a variety of other agreements, waiting for the final result. Note: This article is not for the project announcement, suitable for mass readers, the content is only for analysis reference.

Intent-Centric Design Principles

Generate context:

In the Web3 world, transaction is the most core function, no matter DeFi, GameFi, NFT or even any track concept can not be separated from the basic transaction. However, the reality is that the decentralised attribute of blockchain determines that different chains are all an independent island from each other, and we need to find a bridge linking them between different islands in order to complete asset exchange. While centralised trading provides a convenient experience for users to trade assets, countless Dapp applications still require wallet authorisation to swim one by one. In order to lower the experience threshold of decentralised applications, the Intent-Centric concept was born.

Though the inception of “intent” is not recent, the conceptual furore was sparked by Paradigm, so we’re borrowing their definition for reference: “By signing and sharing an intent, a user is effectively granting permission to recipients to choose a computational path on their behalf”. In practice signatures are dominated by the spontaneous intent of the user, but is it really possible to hand over assets to third party outsourcing in order to lower the barrier to use? The following section discusses what is involved in realising the Intent-Centric vision.

What is the intention:

Paradigm’s interpretation of the concept of intent is expressed in Intent-Based Architectures and Their Risks, published on 1 June 23rd.In the user’s regular transaction flow, the transaction signature allows the verifier to perform the verification execution according to a particular computation path, and the Gas fee for its process is used to incentivise the verifier to complete the computation.However, the intent does not explicitly refer specifically to a particular computational path, and it is sufficient for any path to complete the final result while satisfying specific constraints.In practice by signing and sharing an intent, the user is effectively allowing the recipient to choose out the transaction execution path on their behalf (as below), and to distinguish it from the transaction we define an intent as a message signature that allows state transitions from a given starting state to retrieve multiple paths to reach the final state result [1].

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image1.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

image source:Intent-Based Architectures and Their Risks — Paradgim

As shown above, a clear execution path needs to be specified when submitting a transaction, e.g. Token exchange at Uniswap, but when submitting an intent the execution path is determined by the matching result.For the user only need to put forward their own intention, the other by the Intent-Centric protocol/application to complete, that is, matching the execution path, briefly described the execution of the operation as Solver is responsible for matching the intention of the execution of the path, and finally waiting for the final execution and get the results can be.

In short: Transaction = I specify the implementation to do so; Intent = I want the result but am not concerned with the process of achieving it.Intentions with different preferences can be matched in a complex way, and this process requires “counterparty discovery” and “solver solving”.

Bob,the Intent Solver

image source:ETH Global

Bob the Solver(Hereafter, we refer to solvers collectively but not specifically to Bob Solver.)It is an intent-based transaction infrastructure whose main purpose is to simplify the operational process, lower the threshold of user participation, integrated participation in wallets and decentralised applications, essentially creating and executing the user’s outsourced transactions, and whose implementation consists of two main associative components:

  • Solver for creating transactions: Composed of an AI chatbot + Intent Classification + Transaction Optimisation, it is responsible for achieving the optimal execution path of user’s intents and sending them to the AA wallet, and the solver is equipped with a Machine Learning (ML) model for classifying user’s intents;
  • Abstract Account Wallet for Transaction Execution: AA wallet system using the EIP-4337 standard, consisting of a Bundler and a Paymaster, integrated with a solver to simplify the transaction process.

Intent Layers and Solvers

Is it possible to build out a separate intent layer and have solvers compete for the solution? While theoretically achievable, the reality is that implementation is very difficult.We need to focus on Anoma, SUAVE (see below for details) as a solution to the core MEV problem.In order to realise Intent-Centric’s visionary goal of packaging transactions to a third party for completion, what features are required to securely complete the asset transfer?

1.trustworthy:

In order to achieve trustworthy and decentralised blockchain features, it may not be sufficient to assume the existence of a simple “intent network”, which would not be able to deliver on user and solver guarantees of intent.Because the user will have the specific cost of each execution path calculated by Sovler after indicating his intention, and because Sovler will be bound by the regulation set by the user, the user needs to know that each execution path is trustworthy;

2.private:

The complex nature of the solver to provide an optimal execution path for the user will inevitably be subject to hacking to steal assets or obtain user information, while most of the time the user’s on-chain activity information will be exposed to observers, in order to ensure the security of the user’s information needs to be encrypted or hidden at least part of the important information, but in the blockchain to achieve the privatisation of computable information is very difficult;

3.Expression of intent:

Intent is an abstract concept, there seems to be a similar problem with the way users express their intent to the blockchain and the way users ask questions to the AI; what should I say to it so that it understands what I am trying to say? If some expresses some ambiguous intention, does the solver incur more Gas cost in choosing the execution path, an efficient and accurate parser is the key to realising the intention;

4.Maintaining Consistency of Intent and MEV:

Taking SUAVE as an example of a standalone blockchain that solves the EVM reality problem, when it processes Ether intent it needs to perform cross-chain settlement, similar to the huge success of MEV decentralised solutions such as MEV-Geth and MEV-Boost, which have been launched to satisfy cross-chain MEV needs with a fairer and more transparent transaction processing mechanism;

5.Anti-censorship:

Based on Paradigm’s explanation, it is easy to see that there is a central issue, which is that there should not be a single AI-capable parser, such as a single parser that is attacked or deactivated, leading to a bad situation where the whole system goes down, and whether there are problems with parsers that refuse to execute, execute incorrectly, and so on, which Anoma may be able to address in the following section;

6.Competitive nature of solvers:

Different users will have different intentions, and solvers will contain multiple transaction classes, such as exchange, cross-chain, pledge, etc. There will be no competition between single solvers, as solvers will only be able to collect fees when settling on-chain. Is it possible to maintain competition between solvers by allowing the solvers responsible for different transaction classes to be reasonably redistributed or optimising the parser algorithm so that every valid address is eligible to become a solver to successfully participate in the Mempool, thus improving the quality of transaction execution;

7.Intended Memory Pool:

Paradigm proposes three new Mempool solutions:

Permissionless Intentpools: an open design allows anyone to submit intent to a memory pool and provides permissionless access to the executor;

Permissioned Intentpools: Require permissions to submit and execute user intents and allow users to pass them to a trusted third party to execute on their behalf;

Hybrid Solutions: combines the above two memory pool features, aiming to achieve a balance between openness and control.

Elements required to fulfil the intent

Account Abstract (AA)

A quick recap: there are two types of accounts in EtherCenter: EOA externally owned accounts and CA contract accounts. The difference is that the former can initiate transactions, while the latter can’t but can host Solidity code, and most of the accounts we use now are EOA accounts. In addition, there is also Gonsis Safe, a multi-signature smart contract account (SCW). The contract account mentioned just now cannot initiate transactions, so it is necessary to use the EOA to start the SCW, so that the EOA can only be responsible for signing the transaction, while the smart contract can execute any logic, which can develop countless new application scenarios while enhancing the security of assets.

The implementation of the Intent Layer requires account abstraction (for reasons explained in the SUAVE section below), and EIP-4337 consists of six parts: UserOperation, Bundler, EntryPoint, Wallet Factory, Paymaster, and Signature Aggregator. Signature Aggregator) consists of six parts. The brief operation flow is as follows:

  • Initiating a user operation, i.e. executing the transaction;
  • Send the operation to the P2P “UserOperation Mempool” and have the bundler “bundle” the executed signatures, gas fees, and other user operation transaction content and submit it for uploading (in practice, this includes a variety of scenarios not discussed here). The bundler “bundles” the contents of the user operation transactions, such as signatures, gas fees, etc., and submits them for uploading (in practice, this includes a variety of scenarios that will not be expanded here);
  • The bundler sends the “bundle” to the entry contract for processing, and may optionally use a signature aggregator to check for legitimacy;
  • The portal contract pre-sends the transaction to the wallet contract or to the payment contract;
  • Payment in lieu contracts can be of various types depending on the project’s business logic, which will not be expanded here for the sake of simplicity【2】.

image source:ETH Global

Smart contract wallets are undoubtedly the biggest players in account abstraction, and the main competing forces are Gnosis Safe, a multi-signature wallet, and Candide, which focuses on building a smart contract wallet that is fully compatible with EIP-4337. Through the analysis of the above chart, it is easy to find that account abstraction utilizes bundler+payment in lieu of contract to fulfill the “narrow” intention suitable for developers, while Paradigm utilizes Solver+AI to fulfill the “broad” intention suitable for mass users. The concepts of “abstraction” and “intent” could not be more appropriately placed within the same track, both of which have a magical notion of order in the midst of chaos.

Intended programmability

According to Researcher@tmel0211, the programmability of intent can be summarized as follows: if the intent is not programmable, the program is not executable, automation is not possible, and there is no way to talk about intelligence. How to understand, intent is a human thought expression which itself has an abstraction containing emotional factors, and accept it is a string of cold code and algorithms, like my intention is to make money, code and algorithms how to help me find the path of execution of the intention?Intent-Centric is not a brand new concept, but is based on the current existing simplified intent design, for this purpose Organize the existing Intent-Centric projects and concepts.

Projects with known representation:

  • UniswapX : off-Chain extension program intent
  • CowSwap : off-Chain extension solution intent
  • 1inch : Fusion order matching off-Chain + Multi-DEXAggregator
  • Solv Protocol : New ERC3525 standard to realize complex financial intent
  • Unibot : Centralized server background preset parameters, rules and other automationintent
  • Opensea : Off-Chain Signature + On-Chain Contract Combination Completion

The concept of known representativeness:

  • ERC3525 Standard : Proposed by Solv Protcocol, it aims to provide a semi-quantitative asset standard that can describe digital assets in a more structured way to meet the needs of various application scenarios;
  • Abstract Account Account Abstraction : Provides a set of standardized account management interfaces for abstracting the underlying implementation complexity of different types of accounts, free of Gas, social recovery, etc;
  • MPC Wallet: with private key slicing technology, the private key is divided into multiple copies and stored on multiple independent nodes. When performing operations such as transactions, these nodes work together to generate signatures through a secure multi-party computing protocol without having to re-constitute the full private key.

In summary both representative projects or concepts are a series of more complex instructions to allow users to achieve a more simplified experience, if the above is divided into four categories:

  • Centralized INTENT.

Centrally based resource aggregation and matching platforms such as Unibot and other bot trading CEX trading, Friend.tech, etc;

  • Structuredintent.

Based on smart contract or agent contract combination, on-chain + off-chain preprocessing combination, new ERC standard and other pre-set parameters adapted to EVM virtual machine execution;

  • Distributed intent:

Based on the new blockchain architecture such as Solver+Executor which does not need to be distributed, a new marketplace can be constructed to execute the complex intentions of users; \

  • Intelligent INTENT:

Based on AIGC as the carrier of input+outcome, the AI through DeFi’s full-area training can program users’ complex intents and execute the output.

image source : Researcher@tmel0211

MEV

Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) means that a miner can add, delete, or rearrange trades in order to obtain additional revenue rewards, such as DEX arbitrage, Fornt-Running, Back-Running, Liquidation, Snipping bots, Time-bandit attacks, Sandwich attacks, etc. This is detrimental to the rights and interests of users who normally use DeFi. Snipping bots, Time-bandit attacks, Sandwich attacks, etc., which harms the rights of normal DeFi users. Expanding on this, transactions on Ether are based on Gas to allow miners to order transactions, high Gas is prioritized for packet processing, low Gas is processed slowly, transactions are first submitted to the Mempool memory pool [3], waiting to be included in the block, the verifier extracts transactions from the memory pool and adds them to the next block at build time, and since the memory pool is public, the searcher has the opportunity to order transactions in a specific way by paying the verifier a fee for the transaction. The searcher has the opportunity to pay a fee to order transactions in a specific way and extract value from the user by ordering them, thus the MEV miner value. Realizing the user’s intent requires handing over the transaction to a third party for outsourced processing, so the MEV generated by the transaction in the Intent-Centric architecture is also one of the issues to focus on.

The most intuitive impact of MEV: harming the entire network while competition makes the market more efficient.

  • Uneven distribution of capital (big players have more ETH chips) may lead to the centralization of validators (larger pledge pools get higher MEV returns) to reduce the overall security of the network, and even though mitigating means have emerged to produce some effect, the risk of centralization due to block building rights cannot be completely eliminated at present;
  • To increase the likelihood of transactions being packaged, MEVs competing with each other for searchers gain priority by bidding for Gas, which can cause the public memory pool to become network congested due to high Gas fee transactions by searchers, but at the same time DEX arbitrage and lending and borrowing clearing can help the DeFi market reach equilibrium more quickly to maintain market stability.

MEV is an important topic that the industry has been exploring for many years, and how to mitigate the disadvantages of MEV is also being explored, which will be explained in the next section, “General Solutions to Realize Intent”. According to EigenPhi’s data as of September 15, 2013, there is still a large amount of room for revenue from MEVs on the chain, and after the Ether merger, only the block nodes that use Flashbots have made more than 200,000 ETH, so this is a huge piece of cake for the distribution of benefits.

image source:EigenPhi | MEV Data

Cross-chaining, sequencers and oracles

Intent-Centric is a huge system architecture, according to Paradigm’s explanation, the content of Intent-Centric will involve the whole blockchain field, all kinds of Layer1 and different Layer2 between the huge asset transfer should be passed to the intention to facilitate the processing. Nowadays, the development of the industry has brought us to an era of multiple chains, each chain is an island between them, but there will be different bridges between the islands, so the cross-chain and sequencer are also necessary bridges to fulfill the intent.

Based on the current prosperity of the Ethernet Layer2 ecosystem, the four mainstream recognized kings: Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Starkware each show their own Layer3, OPstack and ZKstack corresponding narrative. The common problem faced by Layer2 at the moment is the centralized sequencer problem, although we are actively looking for a viable solution, but the reality is that there is a huge cake hidden here, take OPstack as an example, we can take its profit model as a simple “rental store” to understand, Layer2’s profits = Layer2’s profit = Layer2’s gas income + MEV income — Layer1’s gas expenses. If we want to realize the intended purpose, the toll between Layer2 and Layer1 is indispensable.

The topic came to the cross-chain bridge, the current Layer2 boom let us early recognize the considerable profits of the sequencer, but the profits of the cross-chain should not be underestimated, the cross-chain is to open up the bridge between the different chain silos is essential, as one of the infrastructures of the current bear market environment in addition to meet the cross-chain of the normal trading user needs, the jerking off the party for the airdrop of the expectations of the cross-chain demand is still a practical existence of the market demand. The demand for cross-chain is still a real market demand. The ever-expanding Dapps application will also gradually eat into the profits from the convenient centralized exchanges. However, it is worth noting that the problem is the security of the cross-chain bridge, according to hacked.slowmist official data, in the two-year period from the start of June 29, 21 to September 16, 23, the cross-chain bridge ecosystem has a total of 38 public security incidents, the cumulative damage to the financial as much as 2 billion U.S. dollars. In summary, the realization of the intention involves an unavoidable Gas cost, but this paper does not discuss the security of the sequencer and cross-chain for the time being, although it is a problem that deserves our focused attention.

image source:hacked.slowmist

The topic comes to Oracle, in a macro perspective the strong financial attributes of the blockchain leads it to be a systematic environment in pursuit of certainty, even though RWA’s narrative has been talked about for years, the reality is that the blockchain can’t access real world data outside the chain but only inside the chain, because the virtual machine (VM) can’t allow smart contracts to have a Network Call (Network Call), so the operation of the smart contracts have to be consistent results, so the data is also closed to the outside world. The result must be consistent, so the blockchain data is also closed to the outside world.

Let’s zoom in and take a microscopic view. Predictors are an important element in the DeFi world, and while the security of the different protocols is usually inherited by the underlying smart contract network, its proper functioning is still dependent on the predictor, and if the predictor of a protocol is attacked or corrupted, then the entire protocol can be manipulated. Today, DeFi prefers to define itself as “Primitives” and wants more teams to build products or combine protocols on top of them, but the new DeFi contracts derived from this iterative process will upgrade their own operation logic in order to host a larger ecosystem, which also brings some external This also brings some external dependencies and unforeseen risks.

Over the years, the DeFi space has seen billions of dollars in cumulative thefts, such as the hack of the Euler Finance lending protocol in March of this year, which resulted in a loss of up to $200 million. It allows users to post collateral and borrow money, and its problem occurs when a specific function is in place and there are no security checks on it, enabling users to break fundamental invariants in the lending market (e.g., the fundamental invariant in UniSwap: tokenBalanceX * tokenBalanceY == k). Derivatives protocols that also rely on prognosticators for pricing that lack internal price discovery mechanisms are susceptible to price lags without updates, severely limiting their scale and user experience, which explains exactly why trader Avraham Eisenberg was able to successfully attack Mango Markets and siphon off $116 million from the cryptocurrency trading platform.

In conclusion, the dark laws of the blockchain forest are generally fraught with unknown risks, and there is still a long way to go to realize the vision of an Intent-Centric architecture.

image source:Chainalysis

Aggregators and Gas

Aggregators emerged as a direct result of the need to save users the trouble of searching for optimal trading paths and return strategies, and include a wide range of aggregator types, such as: trading aggregators, information aggregators, return aggregators, liquidity aggregators, asset management aggregators, etc. Intent-Centric architectures require a certain degree of centralization, and the various types of aggregators may facilitate the execution paths of the parsers in their search for intent. The Intent-Centric architecture requires a certain degree of centralization, and the various aggregators may facilitate the parser’s path through the intent search process, giving a certain degree of “reference answers”.

Gas is a necessary toll to execute all kinds of transactions, how to optimize the Gas fee is also one of the industry’s clichéd topics, at present, the overall situation is centered around the product side, the account abstraction wallet, DeFi protocol to do optimization, the future will be able to combine the aggregator, the account abstraction, the DeFi protocol, the three from a completely new product-side point of view to optimize the effect of Gas, let’s wait and see. We’ll see.

Wallet Authorization

The first step of Dapps interaction: wallet authorization, let’s return to the transaction itself, the Intent-Centric architecture aims to simplify the transaction and reduce the threshold of the user, but each intended transaction involves countless authorization signatures, how to securely and conveniently solve the authorization problem is also a problem that needs to be considered, perhaps the account abstraction and the following dappOS V2 is a good solution. perhaps account abstraction and the following dappOS V2 is a good set of solutions.

Generic solutions for realizing intent

Anoma

image source:Anoma

Synopsis:

According to a report by Coindesk on 5/31/23, Anoma Foundation has successfully completed an investment of $25 million from CMCC Global, Electric Capital, and 14 other capitals. The project’s architecture for intent was already proposed in a whitepaper published in August 22: Intent Gossip Layer The Intent Propagation Layer is used to propagate intent, discover counterparties and match execution paths. It is designed to be the default verification path, and all its Gossip messages are signed by the sender node, thus forming a signature chain that can be traced back to the initiator. This feature is especially important in the anti-censorship and Dos, so when it comes to the implementation of Intent-Centric, Anoma is a must-have.

Anoma initially developed and used a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus mechanism based on Tendermint, and then moved to an alternative PoS Proof of Stake consensus mechanism “ Typhon “ developed by Heliax to allow for consensus partitioning between independent chains. The project team has developed Taiga, Typhon, MASP, Vamp-IR, Juvix, and other multi-party technologies to drive cryptography and distributed systems experimentation.

Continuing from the “Intent Programmability” paragraph above, programmable algorithmic structures and counterparty discovery are indispensable features to realize the architectural vision of Intent-Centric, which needs to be built on top of multi-interactive and multi-application, and so Anoma, a unified architecture for full-stack decentralized applications, is introduced to co-construct the decentralized application paradigm.

image source:Anoma

Design architecture and its innovations:

  • Privacy Payments

To protect user privacy and prevent others from collecting data retrospectively, the sender, receiver, amount, and asset denomination are encrypted, and the transfer of funds is guaranteed through zero-knowledge proof zk-SNARKs, which are unique in allowing all assets to share the same MASP to provide combinable asset protection increasing the user’s anonymity set, rather than each asset being masked individually. The more participants the more assets are transferred more frequently, which dramatically increases the level of anonymity of asset transfer data;

image source:Delphi Digital — Delphi Creative

  • Bartering

Barter” exchange programs are repeatedly emphasized in this project, and the core idea is derived from the ancient practice of bartering. Simply put, it is a bartering program that does not require a medium of exchange, does not involve the receipt of cash, and requires at least a double coincidence for the participants to be able to trade successfully: one is that the two parties happen to have something that the other party wants, and the other is that both parties are transferring the convenience of the transaction. In this way, it helps the user to pass to the node operator at the intent propagation layer and the matching node operator that runs a check on the compatibility of these intents in order to create and match the relevant transactions and send the corresponding book of executed transactions.Anoma implements a digital bartering program that facilitates the trading of goods, services, or digital representations of value;

  • Intent Matching System

In an Ethernet EVM, where transactions do not mandate a future state but rather authorize a specific execution path, Anoma includes a matching system that allows users to broadcast the intent of a transaction using Gossip. Simply put, Anoma consists of two main components: a distributed ledger and an intent matching system, which complement each other or work independently to help users automatically discover counterparties by using Intent Gossip to run a node, a token exchange solver, and an RPC server requesting new intents and submitting transactions from the matched intents to the distributed ledger;

  • Multi-chain support

Anoma uses the Cosmos ecosystem’s Interchain Communication IBC protocol for inter-blockchain communication, which utilizes repeaters to enable data transfer between different blockchains and is intended to be a multi-chain privacy layer. Currently although repeaters are usually run by node operators, anyone with the ability to do so can run them and earn fees in the process;

  • Fractal Scaling Scaling Solution

Anoma uses a fractal solution to address blockchain scalability by allowing users to create local instances for other transactions. Fractal refers to dividing Anoma into different application chains to handle different tasks, allowing each Anoma application chain to be highly customizable thus scaling and responding to user growth (similar to the support of the IBC protocol to reach scaling purposes), and its security will be enhanced in the future by the ⅣInterchain Security, ⅣMesh Security, Ⅳ The security will be enhanced by the IV Interchain Security, IV Mesh Security, and IV Interchain Alliance programs.

SUAVE

Synopsis:

According to July 25, 23, Flashbots, an Ethernet infrastructure service, closed a $60 million Series B funding round at a $1 billion valuation for the development of the SUAVE platform.SUAVE (Single Unified Auction for Value Expression) separates memory pooling and block generation from the existing blockchain thereby forming a a layer of independent blockchain network (sorting layer) and provides a highly specialized plug-and-play alternative [4], aiming to address the infrastructure of MEV-related challenges.

While SUAVE is a new blockchain, it is not a generalized smart contract platform that can compete with Ether or any other participating chain. If Anoma is compared to building an intent-centric blockchain, then SUAVE is building an intent-centric infrastructure .

image source:SUAVE in the blockchain stack

SUAVE’s three goals:

  • Illuminate the dark forest: expose to every user the unfair events of the current opaque MEV ecosystem, quantify their impact and break down the information barriers between participants;
  • Democratic mining: to achieve integration between miners and retrievers in an open way, promoting competition between all parties in a way that maximizes restrictions and is free to all miners, in order to prevent MEV integration and centralization;
  • Distribution of benefits: handing over the MEV to the people who created it — the users of the Ether.

According to SUAVE’s intent solution, cross-chain settlement is required when dealing with transactions from the outside (Ether, for example), and it can be used to try to solve the various types of risks in EVMs, as in the case of MEV decentralized solutions such as MEV-Geth and MEV-Boost that have been launched with great success. However, it should be noted that in the process of realizing the user’s intention to deposit funds into SUAVE, and in the process of unlocking the funds when the demand is resolved, the smart contracts on SUAVE need to be verified for the asset and will involve a prophecy machine, so to a certain extent SUAVE will also be exposed to all the risks of the cross-chain bridges that are in place today.

From SCW with AA to SUAVE with Intent-centric:

Looking back at the “Account Abstraction AA” section above, and thinking about the main features that account abstraction brings: private key retrieval, gas-free payments, multi-signature authorization, multiple transfers for a single transaction, rate limiting, etc., account abstraction in general is a perfect combination of the advantages of both regular accounts (EOAs) and smart contract accounts (CAs).

SUAVE’s vision is to become a common sorting layer between all kinds of different chains (including cross-chain transactions and MEVs), so if the user’s intention is to involve cross-chain asset transfers, Account Abstraction (AA) and multi-signature Smart Contract Accounts (SCW) such as Gonsis Safe combine the advantages of both sides, and combined with SUAVE’s EVM solution may be a set of better theoretical solution in theory.

CoWSwap

image source:CoW Protocol

Synopsis:

If we were to pick the project that is closest to the Intent-Centric architecture, CoWSwap could certainly be at the top of the list. Its protocol is different from other protocols in that the user transaction only needs to send out a signature order, delegate the execution of the transaction to the solver network, and complete the transaction in that network (no need to specify the execution path), and at the same time, the off-chain signature order will be executed due to the solver matching (similar to but different from Bob Solver above), due to the solver’s “batch bundling “ right so the Gas cost of the process will be borne by the solver transaction fails without payment.

CoWSwap Hooks:

Talking about Hooks does it remind us of Uniswap V4? But the actual use of the two functions are very different, CoW Hooks is a series of transactions, bridges, pledges, deposits, etc., which can be executed before / after the execution of the order and the execution of the transaction in the form of a single transaction ordering.

Primary Function:

  • Pre-hooks can be used to “set up” conditions for an order. For example, executing the code required to validate an on-chain signature, or setting up required approvals through the EIP-2612 license;
  • Post-hooks are executed after the exchange has occurred and funds have been received by the receiving address. Post-hooks provide immediate access to funds, including through collateralization, provision of liquidity, bridging tokens to L2, etc.

Example of DeFi for CoW Hooks:

  • Debt Repayment and Pledge: Set the Pre-Peg operation to Debt Repayment and Flat Position, then use CoW Swap to exchange the assets, and finally use the Post-Peg operation to deposit the new assets into the Fixed Position Vault;
  • Creating LP Positions: either use pre-linked transactions only or post-linked transactions only;
  • JIT (Just-In-Time) Smart Orders: program Safe smart contract wallets to perform customized smart contract approvals and swaps via the composable CoW framework (ERC-1271);
  • NFTs: NFTs can be sold or bought within the CoW Hooks feature;
  • Cross-chain: Cross-chain transactions can be accomplished by sending assets to bridge contracts via CoW Hooks;
  • Airdrops: Airdrops can be sold using CoW Hooks without the need to use ETH as gas;
  • Unlocking and Repledging: Verifiers who have pledged 32 ETH can unbind to receive rewards, or repledge assets on other chains using CoW Hooks;
  • Automatic increase of LP positions: assuming that one becomes a liquidity provider in the EUR — USDC pool at the Gnosis chain in order to receive GNO Token rewards. You can use CoW Hooks to automatically convert your GNOs to EUR — USDC through CoW Swap at a 50/50 ratio to automatically increase your LP position.

dappOS V2

After discussing the Intent Layer and related infrastructure layers, let’s explore the dappOS V2 protocol, which has been dubbed the “New Wave of the Intent Layer”. dappOS V2, valued at up to $50 million, closed a seed round of funding on July 21, ’23, co-led by IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital (China), and received attention from other big VCs and Coinsafe. At the same time it also received attention from other big VC organizations and CoinSecurity .

dappOS V2 is an intentional protocol that references dappOS accounts and the dappOS network in order to simplify user interaction with dApps to achieve a CeFi level user experience. It also removes the fragmentation barrier of multiple chains through the “Chain Abstraction” technology (Chain Abstraction is similar to Back-Of-Account Abstraction).

image source:Intent-Centric A Narrative worth keeping an eye

Whether for intentional or transactional purposes, the user’s focus is always on the total amount of money in the account, not on individual asset balances between different chains. According to the understanding of dappOS V2, there should be a unified account wallet to achieve the intent vision of “One Signature Does It All”, and the concept of one-click multiple “TXN (Transaction)” design is introduced, which is used for The concept of one-click multi-”TXN (Transaction)” was introduced as a way to clear the hurdles for users to complete their TXNs and achieve intent-driven transactions.

For example, it is borrowed to realize the interaction with GMX between different chains of Arbitrum and Avalanch in the absence of assets, thus achieving the intention-centered transaction law that will be the basis of DeFi in the future. So realizing the concept of intent-centricity needs to involve chain abstraction, account abstraction and more “protocol abstraction” . But here’s a question to consider: assuming that all types of abstractions are realized, will the laws of interaction for jerky users and the rules of airdrops for all types of projects change?

Summary:

Intent is still full of risks and challenges in its execution process, it needs to rely on intermediaries or specific executors, so there is a risk of concentration of rights and monopolization, which affects the trust of the whole middleware. Secondly, the security and privacy risks associated with handing over the transaction to a third party for execution are also worth considering, and it is worth looking forward to see whether Intent application developers can strike a balance between security, privacy, and convenience.

The concept of Intent has mature applications in Web2, such as taxi software, ticketing software, map navigation, but the success of these applications is based on the sound foundation of Web2 infrastructure, such as the need for mature application scenarios in the field of Web3 need to wait for the industry to continue to mature. Intent-Centric is a grand concept, which involves all aspects of the blockchain, as well as the blockchain, and is also a key element of the blockchain. Intent-Centric is a grand concept that involves all aspects of blockchain, and is also one of the best paths for blockchain to combine with AI, but whether it can develop and flourish on the ground still requires our continued attention.

About YBB

YBB is a web3 fund dedicating itself to identify Web3-defining projects with a vision to create a better online habitat for all internet residents. Founded by a group of blockchain believers who have been actively participated in this industry since 2013, YBB is always willing to help early-stage projects to evolve from 0 to 1.We value innovation, self-driven passion, and user-oriented products while recognizing the potential of cryptos and blockchain applications.

Website | Twi: @YBBCapital

Explanation and References:

【1】https://www.paradigm.xyz/2023/06/intents

【2】https://mirror.xyz/0x7333aB7AE068Ef92fb77A2bcab32FA273c45185c/ozUKb4RdhqB4ya49uw_OfMHILiZpDBV99eosD9gfumU

【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://medium.com/metaweb-vc/account-abstraction-and-suave-how-far-are-we-from-an-intent-centric-ethereum-907e30804880

https://news.marsbit.co/20230818082351362551.html

https://ring-echidna-74e.notion.site/2023-09-14-Intent-centric-_Haotian-CryptoInsight-26795d3ac3b8493293b18f354fe898c2

https://research.web3caff.com/zh/archives/11091?login=success&ref=416

Disclaimer:

  1. This article is reprinted from [medium]. All copyrights belong to the original author [YBB Capital Researcher Ac-Core]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
  2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
  3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.
Start Now
Sign up and get a
$100
Voucher!