Written by: Eric, Foresight News

Perhaps even NEAR itself did not expect that the rise of Zcash would ignite the NEAR Intents trading protocol, which was launched at the end of last year.

However, this influx of traffic did not come out of nowhere. Apart from well-known exchanges in the U.S. like Coinbase and Kraken, the only platforms where ZEC can be traded are Binance and Huobi. For chains that do not support smart contracts, decentralized cross-chain purchasing channels are even scarcer, and NEAR Intents happens to be one of them.

A project born when intentions were still a market hotspot has proven its value a year later by supporting a nearly forgotten coin.

How does NEAR Intents trade ZEC?

NEAR Intents is an important achievement in the development of chain abstraction promoted by NEAR. The concept of intent itself allows users to specify a particular outcome without specifying the exact process, which means that cross-chain transactions do not require synchronizing the states of multiple chains; they can be completed off-chain and then verified on-chain, with users only needing to obtain the final result.

In terms of the overall process, users first need to propose an intent, such as using 1 Bitcoin to purchase ZEC. This intent will be broadcast to the network, and the receiving parties will provide their execution plans. The client used by the user can then choose to directly present the optimal plan to the customer or allow the customer to choose themselves after receiving these plans.

Once a plan is selected, the user's wallet will sign it to form a commitment and confirm the settlement on-chain. After that, the solver will execute the plan, and the entire process will be completed once the user confirms that their intent has been achieved. If the user is not satisfied with the result, they can initiate a dispute. According to the service terms of NEAR Intents, the agreement initially reached between the user and the system and the commitment formed have legal effect, and disputes can even be resolved through appeals in the future.

NEAR Intents consists of three core components: distribution channels, market makers, and smart contracts. The distribution channels include NEAR Intents' own frontend as well as wallets, exchanges, and other applications that integrate this product; market makers here not only facilitate transactions, as intents may also include shopping and other services, thus referring to service providers that meet user needs; the contracts deployed on NEAR are used for verifying and settling transactions.

Overall, apart from on-chain verification, most of the processes in NEAR Intents occur off-chain. If you use 1 Bitcoin to purchase ZEC, you only need to deposit 1 Bitcoin into the wallet provided by NEAR Intents. After completing the transaction, NEAR Intents will transfer the corresponding ZEC to your provided Zcash wallet, but there is no asset wrapping involved, no complex cross-chain processes; it may simply be a market maker transferring ZEC to you based on the calculated trading ratio.

Based on this not fully decentralized model, NEAR Intents can theoretically support the trading of all on-chain tokens. In addition to Bitcoin and ZEC, coins like DOGE, DASH, XMR, and LTC, which also do not support smart contracts, pose no technical issues as long as someone is willing to take the order. The entity taking the order could even be a centralized exchange (CEX) itself, which means you do not have to transfer assets from your wallet to the exchange and then back out.

From the data, the initial trading volume of NEAR Intents, launched in November last year, was quite bleak, only gradually gaining momentum starting in May this year, and after October, the trading volume surged due to strong demand for ZEC trading. However, even before ZEC, NEAR Intents had already seen trading volumes ranging from millions to tens of millions, which at least indicates that there is still a demand in the market for directly trading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and DOGE on DApps, especially as trust issues with CEXs become increasingly serious; this demand may continue to grow.

Intents Go Beyond Cross-Chain Trading

After years of development, not being fixated on decentralization has become one of the innovative directions in the Web3 industry in recent years. At the current stage of Web3 development, the demand to directly use ETH from a wallet to buy ZEC may still be the main battlefield for intent-based products, and perhaps one day in the future, when ADA becomes popular, it could happen again. However, the application scenarios for intent products, including NEAR Intents, are by no means limited to this.

Recently, Meituan launched an app called Xiaomei to help users order takeout through AI. You can input your needs in Xiaomei's chat box, such as "I want a light late-night snack," and the AI will combine your needs, your ordering history, and the ratings of shops on the platform to provide several options, allowing you to pay and order directly without switching to the Meituan takeout app.

If there were a similar Web3 application, it could completely integrate NEAR Intents' API along with the API of a large model to achieve this functionality. For example, if I, the author, get tired of writing and want to order a cup of coffee, I could connect to a wallet like MetaMask and use the remaining CRV in it to order a cup of coffee. The market makers mentioned earlier would help me find the optimal price trading path and the lowest fee off-ramp channel to help me pay. All I would need to do is confirm receipt after the delivery person brings me a steaming latte.

In the Web3 industry, there are many such imaginative ideas for the future, but few can persist because they see the future.

NEAR Intents is fortunate; perhaps when it initially supported the Zcash network, it did not foresee this day, but this luck also stems from day-to-day persistence. OpenSea, pump.fun, Polymarket, and even Internet Computer were not products born from following trends, but they all endured to reach their own shining moments.

In an industry where the hot topics can switch in just a week, sticking to a track may lead to obscurity due to being "outdated," but if you persist until the day you believe in the future arrives, you will be the brightest star on this street.

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