• Intents and Account abstraction are closely intertwined
• Instead of the user flow starting with users signing valid Ethereum txs, users sign a new user action called “user operation” (in short userOp).
• Formally, userOps are like normal Ethereum tx, except their nonce and signature fields aren’t defined by the protocol. This allows users to generate them w/o an EOA.
• Users send their userOps to a separate userOps mempool where they get gossipped and picked up by “bundlers” who fulfil the role of an EOA and execute them on-chain on behalf of users.
• The protocol has additional components such as the EntryPoint contract to prevent DoS vectors, userOps aggregation for gas optimizations, and paymasters for gas sponsorship
• From the perspective of the Ethereum protocol, it’s still EOAs invoking smart contracts. The tx submitted by the bundler is identical in format to any other Ethereum tx.
• How is Anoma’s intents are different from the likes of UniswapX or CowSwap?
  • Anoma’s vision is to build out a global intent gossip network where nodes can observe and process intents across many apps. So intents are enshrined in the protocol
  • Not all nodes observe all intents. Nodes are expected to subscribe and listen to a subset of intents of their interest.

Intents

• Intents create a better UX and can work with EOA and AA.
• Intent types: Generalised intents vs Swap based Intent
• Swapping is the biggest intent use case
• Swapping has 2 types - Swap based intent on single chain (UniswapX now) vs swap and bridge intent(UniswapX in future)
• The real right to win is still with teams that have existing Order Flow. That is why DEXes are becoming intent based systems.
• Started with CowSwap, followed by 1inch fusion and now UniswapX
• Everyone is jumping on the intent gravy train while raising money but differentiation is lacking for most teams.