INTENTS: THE NEXT FRONTIER?

Twitter is an intriguing space that offers live insights into various open-source ecosystems. For those following NEAR, the talk of the town has been about the Blockchain Operating System (BOS) and its potential to unify a fragmented user experience. Interestingly, the concept of intents, which has been a buzzword in the Ethereum community, aligns well with NEAR’s objectives.

Intents in Web3 aren’t a completely new topic, as they already found implementation in dApps like CoWswap, under the name preferences. Yet, it took until recently for the concept to be broadly discussed, likely because we now have the technology to support more frictionless user experiences, including Relayers, Account Abstraction, and with ERC4337, the ability to pay gas fees in any token.

What Are Intents?

For those who are familiar with traditional marketing, the term is nothing new as it’s closely related to how you optimise your website to be found by other people depending on their search intent. Similar to how you open Google with a specific reason, such as trying to find the next 1000x mooncoin (a search intent), in the future, crypto users might be able just to express their intent and then accomplish it.

Or, to use a definition provided by Paradigm:

‘In essence, an intent is a set of declarative constraints that allows a user to delegate transaction creation to a network of specialized third-party actors while retaining full control over the process. If a transaction is the how the intent is what the desired outcome should be.’

Transaction-Based vs Intent-Based Systems

Source

• Current Scenario: Ever tracked the steps to convert USDC on NEAR to another token on an EVM blockchain like Polygon? It’s a maze. Our current web3 interaction model is transaction-focused, creating potential inefficiencies and friction in the user journey. It’s fair to assume that the average user doesn’t have sufficient information to guard against MEV or wrong execution strategies.
• The Intent-based Approach: Contrarily, intent-based apps let users convey their desires without delving into the process specifics. It mirrors the experience of instructing a taxi driver about the destination, leaving the route to them.

Recently, Evgeny Kuzyakov, founder of NEAR Social and co-founder of Proximity Labs, hinted at an emerging of DeFi 2.0 on NEAR, which would essentially allow users to deploy smart contracts to their account, enabling direct transfers between users and more intricate controls of what happens whenever one transacts.

While this could go hand in hand with intents, it is more technical and less general than the idea of intents which can eventually be applied to any type of transaction, similar to how you can search for anything on Google.

With intents, users specify the ‘what’, prompting us to ask: Who will fulfill these intents?

Deciphering the Role of Solvers in Intent-based Systems

In the pre-Google Maps era, seasoned taxi drivers, leveraging their local knowledge, ensured you reached your destination efficiently. In the web3 space, the role resembles ‘solvers’. Users express their intent, and solvers, operating in the background, identify the optimal dApps and bridges to attain the desired outcome. The effectiveness and efficiency of solvers will likely be maintained through competitive forces.

However, like all innovations, intent-based architecture is not without challenges:

• Privacy Concerns: Unlike Web2 where searches remain somewhat private, web3’s default settings make every intent transparent, making it vulnerable to front-running. High-level privacy solutions, though necessary, might be resource-intensive.
• Opacity: Post user authorization, the underlying mechanisms that produce results remain undisclosed.
• Uncertainty: Not all intents guarantee immediate or even eventual fulfilment.
• Centralisation Risks: Efficient solvers could monopolise the system, sidelining competition.

Do Intents Represent the Ultimate BOS?

Despite the hurdles, intents signify a paradigm shift in the crypto realm, emphasising user-friendly interfaces. They underscore the need to move the intricacies and complexities to the background, promoting a seamless user experience.

In essence, intent-based apps aren’t novel. They incorporate features like limit orders, delegation, and transaction batching. However, in a world thriving on multiple chains, a cross-domain architecture becomes imperative. And this is where NEAR (BOS), with its commitment to ushering the masses into Web3 and bridging dApps across chains, might just be the missing link.

Sources & Rabbit Hole Material

• https://www.paradigm.xyz/2023/06/intents
• https://medium.com/metaweb-vc/account-abstraction-and-suave-how-far-are-we-from-an-intent-centric-ethereum-907e30804880
• https://bwetzel.medium.com/intent-based-architectures-and-projects-experimenting-with-them-c3ee63ae24c
• https://www.propellerheads.xyz/blog/intents-and-where-to-find-them
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0nFyq9DDPw

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Written by @NEAR_intern
Edited by @achildhoodhero

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