Intent-Based Trading Revolutionizes Cryptocurrency Swaps with Competition and Privacy

The current on-chain swap process can be likened to booking a flight without knowing the route. Intent-based trading flips this by allowing users to specify their desired outcome, not how it's achieved.

This approach involves submitting an intent, a statement of desired outcome, to the network, which is then fulfilled by specialist solvers who compete to find the best terms for the user. Solvers can search across various decentralized exchanges (DEXs), aggregators, off-chain request-for-quote (RFQ) market makers, and internal order flow.

The benefits of intent-based trading include improved pricing due to competition among solvers, reduced price impact through batch auctions and coincidence-of-wants netting, and enhanced privacy options with confidential execution. However, there are also risks associated with this approach, including approval misuse, solver centralization, failed auctions/latency, and opaque fee splits.