How 1inch Uses "Intent Trading" to Solve Cross-Chain Liquidity Fragmentation

Sergey Kunts, co-founder of 1inch, raised an interesting question at Chainlink SmartCon 2024: why is the cross-chain trading experience so poor?

Core Pain Points: Web3 liquidity is dispersed across various chains, with the Ethereum ecosystem ( having a total locked value of approximately $70 billion, including all L2). Users engaging in cross-chain transactions face poor UI, multiple bridging options, opaque liquidity, long wait times, high fees, and security risks.

1inch's Solution: Combine the Fusion( intention execution protocol) with atomic swaps. The core advantages are efficiency, scalability, and permissionless operation. Simply put: users only need to express their trading intentions, while professional market makers are responsible for strategy execution and optimal routing – it's somewhat like turning complex on-chain operations into a black box that automatically gives you the best price.

Data Speaks: Fusion has processed $34 billion in transaction volume, with the limit order feature alone accounting for $29 billion. This shows that the demand for “lazy trading” in the market is very real.

Two major application scenarios: The limit order ( allows you to avoid constantly monitoring the market ) and the cross-chain swap ( truly enables one-click cross-chain ). This wave of innovation can be seen as finding a new growth point at the “intention layer.”