Introduction

The Ethereum ecosystem is undergoing profound innovation and transformation, and the Open Intents Framework stands as a key breakthrough in this process. It aims to advance cross-chain transaction models through standardization and modularization.

Led by multiple organizations, including the Ethereum Foundation (EF), Hyperlane, and Bootnode, this framework is designed to provide Ethereum users with an open and permissionless intent experience. With its modular toolkit, development teams can significantly reduce costs and shorten iteration cycles, accelerating innovation and product deployment.

The Open Intents Framework has already gained support from major Layer 2 networks such as Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, ZKsync, and Scroll. It enhances cross-chain operation efficiency, simplifies developer workflows, and aligns with Ethereum’s long-term vision of lowering technical barriers and driving broader adoption.

Source: https://x.com/ethereumfndn/status/1892244647369433272

What is the Intent-Based Trading Model?

The Open Intents Framework is a modular and open-source toolkit designed to simplify and accelerate the development and deployment of intent-based protocols. With this framework, developers no longer need to build from scratch; instead, they can leverage modular abstractions—such as solvers and composable smart contracts—to quickly customize and launch innovative intent-driven products.

Background: Addressing the Challenge of Multi-Chain Fragmentation

In recent years, the Ethereum ecosystem has flourished with the rapid development of Layer 2 (L2) networks such as Arbitrum and Optimism, as well as emerging blockchains. However, it also faces the challenge of multi-chain fragmentation. Users often encounter complex processes, high costs, and fragmented experiences when performing cross-chain operations.

To address this issue, the “Intents” mechanism emerged. Users only need to declare their goals (e.g., “swap 100 USDC on Base for 100 USDT on Arbitrum”), while solvers automatically handle the rest, eliminating the need for manual cross-chain routing.

However, traditional intent-based protocols have high development barriers, requiring developers to build smart contracts, solvers, and settlement layers from scratch, leading to redundant work. To solve this, the Open Intents Framework was launched by the Ethereum Foundation in collaboration with Hyperlane, Bootnode, and others, aiming to simplify development through a modular and open-source approach.

Unlike traditional trading models, the intent mechanism only requires users to declare their goals without dealing with gas settings or contract interactions. The system executes transactions automatically, utilizing off-chain processes to simplify cross-chain operations, improve efficiency, and lower technical barriers, especially as Layer 2 networks become increasingly fragmented.

The core goal of the Open Intents Framework is to reduce the technical complexity of cryptocurrency transactions and drive ecosystem adoption. Risk Labs co-founder Hart Lambur stated that the framework is a significant step toward this goal, aiming to provide a shared standard for intent execution.

Despite challenges such as technical complexity, liquidity management, and ecosystem coordination, the Open Intents Framework’s modular design simplifies infrastructure development, providing developers with the tools to quickly customize and deploy intent-based protocols.

Source: https://x.com/AcrossProtocol/status/1892300689717514291

Core Features

The design philosophy of the Open Intents Framework (OIF) is to address the technical complexity and liquidity management challenges in traditional cross-chain operations through modular infrastructure and open standards. Specifically, the framework consists of three key modular tools:

1. ERC-7683 Standard: Establishing a Universal Intent Language

OIF implements the ERC-7683 standard, which defines standardized interfaces for intent creation, execution, and settlement. This standard has gained support from community leaders, including Vitalik Buterin. The framework also provides open-source reference code for ERC-7683 and complements the mainnet contracts of Across Protocol, ensuring that developers can innovate flexibly under a unified standard.

Core Components:

1. Cross-Chain Order Structure

Defines the format of cross-chain orders, ensuring consistency across different blockchains and platforms. By standardizing cross-chain transaction composition, ERC-7683 enables interoperability between chains, providing a unified framework for cross-chain transactions.

2. ISettlementContract Interface

Standardizes settlement processing. Through this interface, ERC-7683 defines how transactions are settled across different chains, supporting flexible cross-chain execution and allowing customizable transaction flows to meet the needs of various platforms and users.

3. Fulfil Mechanism

Introduces the “Fulfil” mechanism, allowing participants to provide services (such as order execution) within the cross-chain network to reduce costs and improve efficiency. This mechanism optimizes cross-chain transaction processing, making transactions more efficient and enhancing the user experience.

4. Fill Deadline

Defines a Uni X timestamp marking the expiration time of a cross-chain intent. If the intent is not completed within the specified time, it will automatically become invalid, preventing long waits for failed transactions and improving efficiency and accuracy.

5. Order Data Type

The EIP-712 type hash is used to specify the structure and format of intent data. This standard allows developers and platforms to clearly define data formats for cross-chain transmission and interpretation, ensuring data consistency and interoperability between blockchains.

6. Order Data

It includes key parameters of a cross-chain transaction (such as token, amount, chain, and recipient) and defines the expected outcome of the transaction. By explicitly specifying these parameters, all parties involved can accurately understand and execute cross-chain operations.

Advantages:

Seamless Cross-Chain Interaction
By standardizing the expression of cross-chain intents, ERC-7683 lowers the technical barriers for cross-chain operations and simplifies the process. Users can perform actions such as token swaps or NFT transfers between different blockchains without complex configurations, enhancing the convenience of cross-chain transactions.

Enhanced Governance Capabilities
ERC-7683 streamlines governance processes across blockchains, making it particularly suitable for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). It enables DAOs to manage governance across multiple platforms more efficiently, increasing flexibility and transparency.

Source: https://metlabs.io/en/erc-7683-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-cross-chain-standard/

2. Solver Programmability: Optimizing Path Planning and Liquidity Management

OIF features a built-in TypeScript solver that supports cross-protocol indexing, transaction submission, and liquidity rebalancing. Developers can quickly customize solver logic based on this framework.

For example, Eco Protocol is adapting it as the official solver for Eco Routes, while Everclear leverages OIF’s automated rebalancing function to reduce liquidity management costs.

Source: https://eco.com/

3. Modular Smart Contract Assembly: Flexibly Adapting to Various Transaction Needs

OIF comes with a variety of prebuilt smart contract modules, ranging from basic limit order swaps to settlement mechanisms supporting Hyperlane ISM. Developers can freely combine these modules to suit their needs. In the future, standards like Arbitrum’s broadcast protocol and RRC-7755 proof-of-storage can be integrated as modules, enabling the diversified evolution of the intent settlement layer.

Source: https://docs.hyperlane.xyz/docs/protocol/ISM/modular-security

These tools reduce the repetitive workload for developers, transforming the intent functionality from a monolithic tool into a composable “Lego block,” laying the technical foundation for cross-chain collaboration. Currently, the OIF codebase is open-sourced on GitHub and is planned for an audit in the first quarter of 2025, further boosting its credibility and adoption.

Ecosystem Development

The vision of OIF is not only to provide technical tools but also to drive the evolution of the entire intent ecosystem, promoting broader cross-chain interactions.

1. Open Collaboration of Solver Networks

Platforms like Khalani plan to connect decentralized solvers into a shared network, while Uniswap’s The Compact Protocol is exploring the combination of intent and resource locking. These innovations can be rapidly integrated through OIF, forming a solution that spans across all chains.

Source: https://x.com/Uniswap/status/1892309962333831290

2. Experimentation with Settlement Layer Diversity

Developers can choose from various settlement modules, such as the Hashi oracle aggregator, Espresso confirmation layer, or Optimism’s native interoperability solution, to find the optimal balance between security and efficiency.

Source: https://superfest.optimism.io/superchain

3. Customizable UI Templates

To simplify frontend development, the framework offers pre-built UI templates, allowing developers to skip building interfaces from scratch and use these templates as a foundation. The templates are highly customizable, enabling development teams to adjust and modify them according to specific needs.

For example, the Hyperlane Warp UI template allows teams to easily integrate cross-chain functionality, saving a significant amount of UI development time. Based on this experience, OIF also provides ready-made templates to help developers quickly launch their projects.

Source: https://hyperlane-warp-template.vercel.app/

The design philosophy of OIF is not to enforce a unified technical path, but to reduce collaboration costs through standardized interfaces, allowing developers to focus on differentiated innovation. As stated in its manifesto: “If we build together, we win together.”

Source: https://x.com/EspressoSys/status/1892313446458544556

Related Projects

These projects related to the Open Intents Framework (OIF) all focus on the “intent” mechanism, aiming to simplify the complexity of cross-chain transactions and smart contract operations, improve user experience, and drive the development of the crypto ecosystem.

As the core framework, OIF facilitates the integration of various projects by providing standardized interfaces, such as Across Protocol, Chainlink CCIP, and Hyperlane, which optimize asset transfers and cross-chain communication through OIF. Projects like Uniswap X, Cowswap, and SUAVE further enhance the trading experience by optimizing transaction matching and execution efficiency with the help of OIF.

Meanwhile, projects like the Arbitrum Ecosystem Intent Engine and IntentWallet streamline user interactions and smart contract execution, delivering a seamless trading experience. Overall, OIF plays a crucial role as a modular tool in advancing cross-chain ecosystem integration, lowering technical barriers, and improving transaction efficiency.

Source: https://www.openintents.xyz/

Does L2 Still Need Scaling?

The introduction of the Open Intents Framework (OIF) aims to enhance cross-chain user experience, drive liquidity integration, and reduce costs within the Ethereum L2 ecosystem.

However, despite the OIF framework injecting new momentum into the L2 ecosystem, the demand for Ethereum L2 scaling still persists. As L2 activity increases, the competition for ETH blob fees and the bottlenecks in L2 scaling capabilities are becoming more apparent.

Although the ETH Blob mechanism provides scaling support, in practice, as the Ethereum ecosystem becomes more active, blob fees tend to drive up transaction costs, leading to reduced transaction efficiency on L2 platforms. The bottlenecks facing Ethereum’s L2 ecosystem include fee competition and insufficient storage space, especially on top L2 platforms like Base, where blob space has almost reached 100% utilization.

To address these issues, the interoperability of L2s has become a crucial way to alleviate the L2 crisis. It can solve liquidity fragmentation, share storage pressure, and provide better support for asset transfers between L2 platforms.

Source: https://dune.com/hildobby/blobs

Ethereum’s Scaling History

Ethereum’s scaling has evolved from off-chain scaling (such as state channels and Plasma) to L2 (Rollup) dominance, and now to modular and intent-driven multi-chain collaboration. Rollup has become the core technology supporting scalability and performance as the sharding plan gradually shifts to a secondary role.

In the early stages, the focus was on decentralization, while the mid-stage centered on improving performance (throughput and cost). The later stage has placed greater emphasis on user experience and interoperability. Despite this, data availability and security remain critical bottlenecks in the scaling process, with Danksharding and ZK technology expected to be key to future breakthroughs.

As the ecosystem evolves, Ethereum has transitioned from a single mainchain to a “Rollup-centric” network, with L2 gradually becoming the primary platform for applications, while the mainnet focuses on settlement and security. The continuous improvement of developer tools, such as OIF and Superchain, has greatly reduced construction costs and driven more innovations.

Future Outlook

The Ethereum community is addressing the core challenge of the multi-chain era—how to make the existence of chains transparent to users—through open collaboration. To this end, Arbitrum has launched a universal intent engine, Base has experimented with the RRC-7755 standard, and the Open Intents Framework (OIF) offers a modular open-source toolset. The underlying design of OIF does not aim to define a single technical path but rather reduces collaboration costs through standardized interfaces, allowing developers to focus on innovation and advocating for the idea of “If we build together, we win together.”

Currently, OIF’s codebase is open-sourced on GitHub, and a security audit is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025. Developers can join this open-source experiment to explore new order logics, such as cross-chain Dutch auctions, try liquidity management solutions, or add intent functionality to existing protocols. They can also work alongside over 30 ecosystem teams to drive a seamless future for Ethereum.

With the promotion of the Open Intents Framework, the technical barriers to cross-chain transactions will further lower, and the user cross-chain experience will become smoother. Particularly with the scaling of Layer 2 networks, OIF injects new vitality into the Ethereum ecosystem and lays the foundation for popularizing cross-chain transactions and ecosystem integration. The collaboration between the Ethereum Foundation, Hyperlane, and Bootnode showcases the powerful potential of open cooperation, and the launch of OIF provides important insights for future blockchain technological innovation. Through standardized interfaces, modular design, and community collaboration, OIF will play a key role in the future multi-chain world.

Source: https://github.com/Uniswap/the-compact

Challenges and Risks

While the Open Intents Framework (OIF) offers innovative solutions for cross-chain transactions and the Ethereum ecosystem, its implementation and promotion still face several challenges:

1.Technical Complexity: The underlying design of OIF involves multi-chain operations and the standardization of cross-chain transactions. Developers must master new frameworks and interfaces, which may present certain technical barriers. Additionally, the modular design requires developers to have sufficient experience customizing and deploying intent protocols.

2.Technical Risks: The attack surface of modular cross-chain protocols (e.g., Hyperlane ISM) has not been fully quantified, and its security assumptions may contain vulnerabilities. Weak points in the ERC-7683 standard are vulnerable to MEV attackers, who could profit by reordering or inserting transactions, potentially leading to transaction bias or financial losses.

It is recommended that attack tree models be introduced to systematically analyze the potential risks of Hyperlane ISM and ERC-7683. To enhance security, critical nodes vulnerable to MEV manipulation should be identified and marked.

3.Liquidity and Execution Efficiency: Managing liquidity for cross-chain transactions is a complex challenge. While OIF simplifies cross-chain operations, effectively managing liquidity between different chains to ensure smooth transactions remains a technical difficulty.

If liquidity is insufficient, slippage or transaction failures could occur. Moreover, complex intent matching mechanisms may introduce additional delays, affecting the user experience.

4.Ecosystem Collaboration and Standardization: OIF relies on collaboration among multiple ecosystem teams. Promoting tight cooperation between developers, project teams, and ecosystem participants, while ensuring that all stakeholders follow a unified standardized interface, is another challenge. Different chains and protocols may have varying needs and priorities, making it crucial to strike a balance between these differences.

5.Security Risks: Cross-chain transactions involve asset transfers and smart contract interactions between different chains, introducing certain security risks. For example, ensuring the secure execution of cross-chain operations without intermediaries and preventing malicious attacks are problems that OIF must solve.

Although OIF plans to complete a security audit in the first quarter of 2025, security remains a key consideration in the implementation process. Smart contract vulnerabilities could be exploited maliciously, leading to user funds being lost. Additionally, intent executors (such as Fillers and Relayers) may engage in malicious behavior, such as censoring transactions or prioritizing their own transactions (MEV).

For instance, in 2021, Poly Network, a cross-chain protocol, experienced a famous hacking incident. The attacker exploited a vulnerability in the cross-chain bridge to successfully steal $600 million worth of cryptocurrency. Although most of the stolen funds were eventually returned, this event exposed security vulnerabilities in cross-chain protocols related to smart contracts and asset transfers. This is similar to the security risks faced by OIF, particularly in ensuring the safe execution of transactions without intermediaries during cross-chain exchanges.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/13/poly-network-hack-nearly-all-of-600-million-in-crypto-returned.html

6.User Acceptance: While OIF aims to simplify the user experience and lower technical barriers, users still need to adapt to the new cross-chain transaction model. Users may have high expectations regarding chain transparency and the controllability of operations. Therefore, ensuring that users can fully understand and control their transactions while benefiting from simplified processes is another challenge faced by OIF.

7.Cross-Chain Interoperability Risks: The success of OIF relies on efficient interoperability between different blockchains and platforms. To achieve seamless cross-chain transactions, OIF needs to be compatible with the protocols of multiple chains and depend on cooperation and continuous technical upgrades from major platforms.

However, this also introduces potential risks: reliance on external cross-chain protocols (such as Hyperlane, Chainlink CCIP) may introduce inherent security vulnerabilities, and delays or state inconsistencies between different chains could lead to transaction failures or asset losses.

8.Ecosystem Expansion and Development: OIF is an open framework that requires continuous participation from more developers and ecosystem teams. How to promote the adoption of the framework and ensure its sustained development while maintaining an open and collaborative ecosystem remains an issue that needs to be addressed.

Although OIF holds great potential, these challenges must be overcome through technological innovation, community collaboration, and continuous iteration and optimization.

Conclusion

As the Ethereum ecosystem continues to grow, the Open Intents Framework (OIF), an innovative tool, is gradually gaining widespread attention and adoption. By providing standardized and modular development tools, OIF effectively simplifies the complexity of cross-chain operations, lowers technical barriers, and significantly reduces development costs, accelerating product iterations. With the support of major Layer 2 networks such as Arbitrum, Polygon, and ZKsync, OIF not only improves the efficiency of cross-chain transactions but also accelerates the adoption and application of blockchain technology.

Looking ahead, with more developers and projects participating, Open Intents Framework will play a crucial role in promoting cross-chain ecosystem integration, improving user experience, and reducing technical barriers, driving innovation and transformation in the Ethereum ecosystem. Through openness and collaboration, the blockchain community will collectively create a more efficient, secure, and seamless environment, advancing the circulation of digital assets and continuous innovation in smart contracts.

Despite the significant advantages that Open Intents Framework shows in enhancing the decentralized application experience, it still faces some challenges in its promotion process. Firstly, the integration of the framework with existing blockchain technologies may encounter compatibility issues, especially in interactions between different protocols. Secondly, the security of smart contracts remains a risk that cannot be overlooked, with potential vulnerabilities or protocol-level attacks affecting the framework’s stability. Additionally, attracting enough developers and users to participate and promoting its widespread adoption remain key challenges for future development.