Strategic Partnership with SYMMIO: Shaping the Future of On-Chain Derivatives

6 min readNov 30, 2023

With the launch of IntentX’s Open Beta behind us, we are now turning our focus to everything that’s ahead and the long term vision for the protocol.

Our roadmap extends far beyond the immediate milestones such as the token TGE and platform expansion. IntentX has a much larger grand vision for its place in the broader on-chain derivatives marketplace, a vision shared and shaped by our strategic partner, SYMMIO.

The SYMMIO Connection: Pioneering On-Chain Derivatives

SYMMIO, our strategic infrastructure partner, is a decentralized, global risk & exposure settlement layer. Specifically, by digitizing bilateral Over-the-Counter (OTC) derivatives in a permissionless and open on-chain manner, SYMMIO has pioneered an entirely new way of derivatives trading that can be accomplished on-chain.

IntentX is born from the great work that SYMMIO has pioneered, with an aligned vision for the future state and evolution of on-chain derivatives markets.

Together, we aim to stay at the edge of innovation and expand what is currently possible in finance through the advent of efficient, trustless, and secure blockchain technology.

Strategic INTX<> SYMM Token Swap Agreement

To kick-off our close collaboration, we are excited to announce the closing of a strategic treasury token swap agreement between IntentX and SYMM as follows:

1,408,128 (1.4%) $INTX Tokens for 8,800,800.75 (1.0%) SYMM Tokens

This token swap will be executed upon the completion of TGE for both INTX and SYMM.

This agreement symbolizes a deepened and mutual commitment between IntentX and SYMMIO, marking a significant step in our journey to transform the crypto derivatives markets.

IntentX and SYMMIO: A Harmonious Relationship

The synergy between IntentX and SYMM is foundational to our market operations as both entities play crucial roles in ensuring optimal trade outcomes.

For many, a trade simply refers to the moment that two counterparties engage in a transaction, such as the exchange of cash for a bond in a securities trade or the exchange of two currencies in an FX trade.

In reality, for a trade to take place at IntentX, significant pre-planning and follow-up is required. This article will shed light on the complementary functions of IntentX pre-trade and SYMM post-trade processes in the complete intent lifecycle.

IntentX strives to best implement SYMMIO technology and concepts such as bilateral trade agreements and AMFQ into an accessible exchange platform which provides optimal experiences and outcomes to traders, market makers, and more.

IntentX — Mastering Pre-Trade Dynamics

IntentX operates as an OTC market facilitator, syncing market maker quotations with trader order flows.

Pre-trade with IntentX includes:

Capturing and preserving all data related to trading and the trade life cycle
Establishing that counterparty credit risk is understood, ensuring suitability of counterparties
Certifying that the appropriate collateral is collected and managed by each party
Confirming that the risks associated with positions are understood and managed by each party
Provide tooling and systems to parties to help them monitor and evaluate their position risks
Ensure that appropriate controls are put into practice throughout the trade life cycle
Aggregating and streaming marker maker quotations and product offerings
Coordinating cash needs, maintenance margin requirements, fees, and other up-front parameters
Enabling trade execution through gateway to smart contract transaction signing
Ensuring that all trading facilitated complies with relevant laws and regulatory requirements for both counterparties

Traditional order book-based exchanges operate with a singular parameter for order matching exclusively, the price. However, this limitation curtails market diversity and constrains the competition surface for market makers.

SYMM has re-defined this as an n-dimensional framework for order matching, where attributes are set to empower market makers with unprecedented flexibility in creating any market on a multitude of rule sets.

This increases the pre-trade requirements of the marketplace, which now must aggregate quotations on a wide number of variables (fill times, funding rates, price, liquidation history, etc.) and match traders with the best counterparty based on their requirements. It is critical in such an arrangement to provide traders the correct systems and tools to fulfill their trade intents optimally.

One of the key innovations of SYMMIO is the concept of an automatic market for quotations (AMFQ) which allows for order of magnitude improvements in ease of transaction and fill times , compared to a traditional request for quotation (RFQ). With this technology, IntentX already reduces fill times from 5 minutes (typical of the traditional RFQ process) to under 10 seconds.

IntentX’s proprietary quotation matching solution will continue to evolve as our product offerings expands, and more variables /complexity is introduced. We aim to be leaders in the AMFQ market, and innovate novel solutions to ensure traders receive the best executions based on their custom parameters.

IntentX’s pre-trade capital efficiency is also unrivaled because streaming quotes does not require locking capital up-front as order books do. Meaning, market makers are not required to sit on idle liquidity, but rather can provide it just-in-time (JIT). This improves their operations, reduces their capital requirements, and allows them to generate more profits on their liquidity.

IntentX is committed to continue innovating and staying at the bleeding edge of what is possible in this entirely new market space. We understand that the pre-trade process is vital to optimal outcomes in this system, and we are hyper focused on optimizing this aspect of the trade lifecycle.

SYMMIO — Revolutionizing Post-Trade Processes

Post-trade — as the name suggests — is the part of the trade lifecycle that follows the execution of the trade.

Post-trade by SYMMIO includes:

Administering the bilateral trade agreement between counterparties
Locking collateral and CVA requirements on-chain
Managing trade actions such as funding rate adjustments
Managing counterparty credit risk
Conducting trade reconciliation
Settling profit and loss (P&L)
Facilitating trade dispute resolution
Enabling collateral management

SYMM is a decentralized, global risk & exposure settlement layer.

The innovations pioneered by SYMMIO in post-trade settlement disrupt decades old legacy systems, processes, and networks in traditional finance. This is realized through blockchain technology providing the ultimate dream: real-time and secure settlement.

By translating decades of financial legislation and regulations into smart contract code, SYMMIO is hyper-efficient compared to legacy systems with elements such as instant settlement and closeouts. Further, it allows for full transparency and clarity, eliminating full teams of lawyers, risk desk, regulators, and many more resources which create friction in traditional markets.

On IntentX, once the pre-trade process (detailed above) is complete, SYMMIO contracts are utilized for trade processing. This includes the execution of the bilateral trade agreement between counterparties,rules-based trade closure, funding rates adjustments, settlements, liquidations, and more.

The innovation of SYMMIO does not just stop here, further infrastructure developments through order netting, automatic clearing operators, and more will create unrivaled post-trade efficiencies and a system that can safely and efficiently scale infinitely.

Looking Ahead: A Unified Vision

The collaboration between IntentX and SYMMIO is more than strategic; it’s a fusion of visions and technologies that are set to redefine the landscape of on-chain derivatives.

This partnership and the token swap are just the beginning. We are committed to continuous innovation and disruption of this market and look forward to sharing more details of our partnership as we forge ahead.