Intent-Centric: What Projects Are Worth Watching?
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Intent-Centric: What Projects Are Worth Watching?
"Intent-centric" will forever change DeFi, delivering a seamless CeFi experience across the entire DeFi landscape—and even more.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: THE DEFI SAINT
Translation: TechFlow
“What will attract the next wave of users into DeFi?”
This question has been asked countless times.
The answer is simple. We should first return to first principles because if the fundamental issues are resolved, everything else can draw the next wave of users into DeFi. From account abstraction to chain abstraction, and from chain abstraction back to account abstraction—ultimately returning to first principles.
So in this article, I introduce you to “intent,” or more precisely, “intent-centric.” In short, user priorities come above all else now.
Paradigm sees the future and is currently exploring this narrative.
DeFi is maturing rapidly. Every day we see new narratives emerge—some impactful, others merely serving as vehicles for bad actors to profit from the market.
“Intent-centric” will permanently transform DeFi. It will deliver a seamless CeFi-like experience across the entire DeFi ecosystem—and even beyond. The average DeFi user doesn’t understand many protocols or advanced strategies known only to DeFi experts. DeFi is designed for everyone. To achieve mass adoption, it must offer an even smoother experience than CeFi. This could be through account abstraction, chain abstraction, and more. Ultimately, “intent-centric” has been the missing piece.
The user experience in DeFi is terrible. That’s why most regular users prefer centralized exchanges for trading, staking, and other activities. Centralized exchanges are chain-agnostic—you don’t need to approve multiple transactions before completing any action.
This alone can save users countless fees. All these challenges, along with many others faced by users, will end with the arrival of “intent-centric,” as this transition shifts interactions from transaction-based models to intent-based ones.
Typically, a user initiates a transaction that follows a set of computational steps until finalization. For example, a user holding USDT on BSC who wants to stake $ETH via LIDO would take the following steps:
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Bridge $USDT from BSC to Ethereum;
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Swap $USDT for $ETH on Ethereum;
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Deposit into LIDO—or something even more complex.
Throughout this process, the user must perform multiple clicks, approvals, swaps, and deposits. Many users may find this process difficult to understand. But with an intent-centric approach, these barriers are removed—the system executes these steps on behalf of the user without requiring them to go through the complexity.
The image above illustrates the clarity between submitting a transaction versus submitting an intent. With intent, users can clearly specify their goal. I’ll summarize it simply: “Get this done—I don’t care how you do it, just make it happen.”
Here are some key players building intent-centric solutions:
Anoma is building an intent-centric blockchain, while Flashbot is developing an intent-centric infrastructure called “SUAVE.”
Flashbot raised $60 million in a funding round led by Paradigm to build SUAVE—a decentralized network and MEV optimization innovation.
Some intent-like mechanisms already exist and are emerging in new forms, including:
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Limit orders;
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Cowswap-style auctions;
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Delegation;
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Aggregators;
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Batch transactions;
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Gas subsidies;
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Chainlink CCIP.
Beyond blockchains like Anoma and infrastructures like Suave, when it comes to dApps, dappOS is already building this future. Where will this future lead? Account abstraction is a great example of intent—but only the tip of the iceberg.
Chain abstraction is similar to account abstraction but more complex. dappOS V2 is an intent protocol leveraging both. Below is an example user flow for an intent-layer dApp.
dappOS is an operational protocol designed to simplify user interaction with dApps. The upcoming dappOS V2 will introduce dappOS Accounts and the dappOS Network, delivering a CeFi-like experience.
This is why they secured a Pre-Seed round through Binance Labs in June.
On July 21, they announced a Seed round co-led by IDG Capital and Sequoia China, valuing the company at $50 million.
dappOS has attracted attention from major venture capital firms and Binance alike, as there’s strong belief that dappOS will lead the next wave of “intent-centric” innovation.
Let’s explore dappOS V2 technology and see how it eliminates fragmentation barriers introduced by multiple chains through chain abstraction.
Let’s dive deeper into how dappOS V2 advances toward this goal:
dappOS V2 removes fragmentation caused by multiple chains via chain abstraction.
Every account is unified—users only need to focus on their total asset balance, not assets scattered across different chains. dappOS V2 delivers a CeFi-like experience where, once funds are deposited, there’s no need to distinguish based on underlying chains.
A typical use case of dappOS’s intent-centric approach is when a user has no assets on Arbitrum or Avalanche but wishes to interact with GMX. Thanks to dappOS V2’s unified account, the user can fulfill their intent to interact with GMX by accessing assets from other chains.
The intent to interact with GMX is straightforward, but executing it across multiple chains involves a series of complex and time-consuming operations. With dappOS, the user completes their “intent” seamlessly with just one signature.
dappOS V2 introduces one-click multi-transactions—or what they call “one signature, complete everything.” This similarly resolves user intent by eliminating the step-by-step hurdles users must overcome before finalizing a transaction request.
These are just some of the innovations we’ll see in dappOS V2 technology. The future built upon the “intent-centric” narrative must encompass many components such as account abstraction and chain abstraction—both sub-layers of intent. The future of DeFi will be rooted in “intent-centric” approaches, and I am highly optimistic about these narratives and the protocols leveraging them.
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