The crypto landscape is vast and competitive, with many different blockchains, protocols, and applications, all of which are built with their own unique technologies and use cases.
With so much new and complex technology comes a significant intimidation factor and learning curve for new users. This brings us to probably the largest hurdle that blockchains and crypto currently face, User Experience (UX).
If you’ve engaged in any on-chain activities before, there’s a good chance that you’ve run into a few of the vast user experience issues.
Maybe you wanted to buy a token on the Ethereum Network using Uniswap only to find out that the fee would be as much as the transaction itself. Or maybe you had assets on the Solana blockchain and wanted to use an application that happened to be on the Arbitrum Blockchain, leaving you confused and wondering how to even get your assets from one network to the other.
Regardless of what you were attempting to do, You likely would’ve found that the process of moving your assets around to achieve your desired outcome was a major hassle.
Unfortunately, the current reality is that for users who don’t possess extensive experience in the crypto world, the process of doing on-chain activities can be daunting. This is possibly the biggest obstacle facing blockchain today.
There are two key aspects to this issue, that intent-centric blockchain protocols attempt to solve. The first is a phenomenon known as maximal extractable value and the second is general ease of use, or more specifically a lack thereof.
(MEV) Maximal Extractable Value
Maximal Extractable Value MEV refers to the maximum value that can be extracted from blockchain transaction reordering by miners or validators. In blockchain systems, especially in Ethereum, miners or validators have the power to decide the order of transactions within a block.
You could think about MEV as if you were playing a card game where you can secretly rearrange the deck to improve your hand and thus your probability of winning. MEV occurs when miners or validators take advantage of their ability to reorder, insert, or skip transactions, to extract additional money. There are a couple of strategies that miners and validators use to achieve this:
1. Front-running: Executing their own transaction ahead of a known future transaction to profit from price changes.
2. Sandwich attacks: Placing their own transactions before and after a user’s transaction to benefit from the price impact.
This system, in a way, turns users into a commodity for validators to extract the most possible money from. This is reminiscent of how large market makers use high-frequency trading to extract value from retail traders in traditional financial markets.
Ease of Use Challenges
As briefly described earlier, there are many different blockchains that utilize different technology and thus have different strengths and weaknesses.
These tradeoffs incentivize different use cases and in turn, attract different application developers. For example, Solana is fast with high transaction throughput, however, it’s relatively centralized and less secure. These tradeoffs make it generally more attractive for NFTs and gaming applications.
Ethereum on the other hand is slower and more expensive, however, it maintains extensive decentralization and the most robust security of any chain – aside from bitcoin. These properties make it the ideal network for financial applications.
Here in lies the ease of use problems. Many users want to use different applications on different chains, and constantly needing to move assets to use various applications is a headache.
How Intents Solve The UX Issues
Intent-centric blockchain protocols are designed to flip the MEV and other issues on their head, making the user experience on blockchains far more simplistic and pleasant.
Intents allow users to submit their desired outcome, while third parties compete to find the cheapest and most efficient way to fulfill the user’s intent. This system turns the blockchains and protocols into the commodity, giving power back to users, as it should be.
This new structure eliminates the need for users to figure out all the actions they need to take to get from point A to point D while subsequently getting hit with fees and MEV on every one of those transactions to reach their desired outcome.
A good way to think about using intent-centric protocols is like using a rideshare app such as Uber or Lyft. All you have to do is input your desired destination and preferences, and the app takes care of the rest, finding the best driver, route, etc. On the other hand, the old way (without intents) is more like trying to hail a taxi on the street without any help, or attempting to hitchhike – it’s much more uncertain and you aren’t guaranteed to get the best result.
The Simple Process Of Intent-centric Protocols
Expressing a Desired Outcome: Imagine you’re using a blockchain, and instead of saying “I want to do A, then B, then C,” you say, “I want to end up with X result.” That’s an intent.
Solver Competition: once you submit your intent to the protocol, the solvers compete to find the best way to achieve your goal. They might use different methods, but the aim is to satisfy your intent in the best possible way.
Efficiency and User Satisfaction: Because these solvers are competing to satisfy your intent, they’re motivated to find the most efficient and user-friendly solution. This can lead to better outcomes for you and fewer unnecessary steps in the process.
The Outlook For Intents
Intent-centric protocols are still in their early stages of being built, in fact, many of them have just finished their first funding rounds in 2023. The integration of these protocols into the blockchain ecosystem will represent a massive leap forward in improving user experience, providing an approach that will not only streamline the process for users but also foster a competitive environment among solvers.
As the blockchain landscape continues to evolve, we expect that intent-centric protocols will become a key piece of infrastructure moving forward, making blockchain technologies more accessible, trustworthy, and user-friendly, ultimately enhancing the overall appeal and adoption.