As a crypto user interacting with decentralized apps (Dapps), do you know what you’re agreeing to when you authorize transactions, and what the potential outcomes of those actions are?

Today, blockchain interactions typically require users to sign transactions that authorize specific paths set by smart contracts. However, many non-technical users may not fully understand what they agree to or what results will follow when granting these permissions. By signing transactions, they trust that the smart contract’s execution path will deliver the expected outcome. But in reality, there’s often no guarantee of that. For example, when trading tokens on a decentralized exchange (Dex), liquidity issues can lead to high slippage, resulting in fewer tokens received than expected.

So, from a user’s perspective, is there a way to interact with Dapps that gives them more control, allows them to customize their requests, and clearly explains the outcome from the beginning?

It’s much like using a ride-hailing app: the user inputs the pickup and drop-off locations and the price without worrying about the driver’s exact route. As passengers, they don’t need to concern themselves with highways or red lights.

This is where Khalani steps in. Solvers like Khalani aim to address user intent, whether it’s for transactions, cross-chain operations, or finding the best liquidity routing, offering more convenient operations, simplified processes, and trustworthy results.

Khalani: The Intent-Driven Smart Blockchain

In August 2024, Khalani announced raising $2.5 million in seed funding, led by Ethereal Ventures and joined by Nascent, Figment Capital, and Arthur Hayes (through his family office Maelstrom). Khalani plans to use this investment to expand its team, drive research and development, and move into full-scale production.

Khalani is developing the world’s first decentralized solver platform to improve Web3 user experiences through multi-chain collaboration and intent-driven applications.

Source: Khalani

The infrastructure Khalani is building revolves around intent-based interactions. Users no longer need to approve blockchain transactions directly. Instead, they simply define the desired result and any limitations—referred to as their “intent.” The task of generating and executing the transaction is handled by specialized agents known as “solvers” (off-chain agents with economic incentives).

For example, on the 1inch, the solver finds the best trading path under conditions like “minimal slippage, lowest gas fees, and lowest liquidity pool fees,” and offers the user the best quote.

From the user’s point of view, solvers provide a more intuitive, user-friendly experience. They allow users to specify their desired outcomes, remove the complexity of interacting with the blockchain directly, and give them full control over customizing their requests.

For developers, intent-driven interactions represent a new paradigm for building decentralized protocols, opening up significant innovation. Instead of hard-coding solutions, developers can focus on verification and settlement as solvers fulfil user requests more efficiently.

Khalani believes that intent-based protocols can unlock immense potential. In this ideal system, solvers play a key role in identifying and executing the most efficient transaction paths on the blockchain.

Aiming to Simplify Solver Construction by 100 Times

Modern blockchain systems depend on various solvers. These solvers can either be closely integrated with a specific protocol for a single function or act as multifunctional service providers that meet the needs of various protocols. However, despite their essential role, solvers still face many challenges in their development.

First, centralization and concentration of resources.

Take Ethereum block production as an example. As a blockchain network, Ethereum relies on miners to package transactions and create blocks. In this process, participants with more resources—like large mining pools with powerful computing capabilities or those who control key information—have a greater chance of winning rewards. Similarly, solvers with greater resources, such as computing power, capital, or privileged information, have an advantage. They can solidify their dominance through vertical integration (taking on multiple roles or controlling different stages) or by accessing exclusive information (like knowing about transactions in advance). This centralization challenges blockchain’s decentralized ethos and undermines user trust and the system’s fairness.

Second, the complexity of cross-chain operations.

In an ideal world, users’ intent would seamlessly span multiple applications, use cases, and blockchains. The ideal solver should be able to handle such cross-platform, cross-chain interactions. However, the more complex a user’s request, the more data and operations the solver needs to manage.

In cross-chain scenarios, since atomic transactions are not possible, solvers must rely on asynchronous settlement processes and cross-chain oracles. This asynchronicity increases operational complexity and risk, especially when ensuring the reliability and security of cross-chain oracles. Basic solvers may fail to meet these demands, resulting in failed transactions. Even advanced solvers capable of managing cross-chain operations can monopolize the market by charging high fees or giving preference to high-value transactions, leading to a poor user experience.

Third, the technical challenges and high barriers to entry.

Developing solvers involves a complex technology stack, including smart contract development, on-chain data indexing, liquidity and inventory management, and cross-chain communication. This requires developers to have expertise in multiple areas, making it difficult to get started. Moreover, solvers’ reliable operation depends on well-designed DevOps infrastructure. Without significant resources, developers may struggle to compete.

In addition to these challenges, global regulatory uncertainty also limits the development and widespread adoption of solvers.

Khalani’s mission is to simplify solvers into on-chain software modules, with each solver specializing in a specific task and collaborating to solve complex problems. By providing comprehensive tools, documentation, and funding, Khalani aims to help more developers participate in solver development and operations.

Khalani’s Core Values and Architectural Design

Khalani aims to create an open, permissionless platform for integrated collaborative solutions. It promotes open participation and teamwork, rather than relying on predefined vertical integration, to enhance its ability to handle unexpected situations.

Khalani can seamlessly integrate into various intent-driven applications and ecosystems as a versatile collective solver. In this setup, the abstract solutions created by Khalani are settled on-chain within the target intent system. This setup mirrors the collaborative nature of the builder/proposer separation (PBS), where Khalani acts as the “solution builder,” delegating the final settlement to dedicated solvers.

Furthermore, Khalani empowers developers to design their specialized solvers for incremental intent expressions and operations. With Khalani, developers can program autonomous solvers, access existing solving capabilities, and leverage the permissionless network to ensure the resilience and availability needed to support new intent expressions, making the system more adaptable.

Source: Khalani

From a solver’s perspective, conceptualizing intent is one way forward. Khalani’s modular architecture is built around three core components:

1. Intent Compatibility Layer:

The Intent Compatibility Layer standardizes external intent and converts it into a format that Khalani solvers can understand and process effectively.

1. Validity and Validity Virtual Machine (VVM):

Validity is a language and runtime designed to handle general intent. It provides a set of executable specification languages specifically for creating and collaboratively solving intent-based problems. The Validity Virtual Machine offers a unified environment for executing intent, solving processes, and settlement while ensuring deterministic settlement outcomes.

1. Universal Settlement Layer:

Khalani’s settlement layer supports atomic and multi-domain settlements across any intent system.

Source: Khalani

In a single-chain context, Khalani solvers complete transactions on-chain. The process starts with the user signing a message that approves the expenditure. The solver evaluates the message and generates an on-chain transaction sent to the appropriate settlement contract. The settlement contract then evaluates the predicate function specified by the user. If the conditions are met, the settlement is executed.

In cross-chain scenarios, atomic custody and settlement of user funds cannot be completed in a single transaction since multiple blockchains are involved. Therefore, asynchronous settlement processes and cross-chain oracles are required to ensure operations’ accuracy and funds’ security. The solver must fulfil the user’s request on the target chain and rely on the cross-chain oracle to generate proof, complete the settlement, and retrieve funds on the source chain.

As a new project, Khalani is committed to making blockchains smarter and providing Web3 users with a next-level experience. However, the project is still in its very early stages. The website is basic, and apart from a few public documents that outline the project’s vision and technical architecture, the team has not yet provided clear details about its economic model, application use cases, or development plans. Additionally, the community-building effort is still in its infancy, with only a few thousand users on Twitter and Discord.

According to Rootdata, Khalani’s publicly known team consists of co-founder Kevin Wang and CTO Tak Boglantane. Kevin Wang is involved in several projects, including Nervos and the developer education platform Launch School. One of Khalani’s original co-founders, Samuel Dare, has since left the team.

Conclusion

At its heart, the main goal of “intent” is to enable the fullest expression of ideas and collaboration without permission. Systems focused on intent are designed to offer users a seamless and convenient experience, representing a paradigm shift in decentralized protocol development with great innovative potential.

However, with innovation comes challenges, such as balancing usability, security, and scalability when designing architecture. These challenges may stem from technical limitations, user needs, market adaptation, or evolving regulations. We look forward to the continued progress of projects like Khalani, which have the potential to bring new possibilities to the crypto industry.