Since Paradigm first introduced the concept of Intent-Centric storytelling in 2023 and placed it at the top of the list of most anticipated tracks, over a year has passed. Apart from the star products that garnered attention at ETHCC, many project teams have chosen to silently work behind the scenes, focusing on product improvement and practical applications.
With the rapid development in the field of AI, particularly in the direction of AI Agents, a more crypto-native concept of AI + crypto products is emerging, known as AI Agent as a Solver. However, the challenge of organically implementing products based on crypto economics incentives still remains for everyone.
The recent launch of Optopia’s mainnet may provide the market with a reference point for the latest engineering practice combining AI Agent and Intent-Centric driven by economic incentives.
Intent-Centric Architecture Review: Key Engineering Challenges
Since the last time the Intent-Centric narrative gained significant exposure in the market, a year has passed. As we now review the progress of this track over the past year, we delve into the constraints of engineering practices.
Using relatively abstract language to describe intent, “on-chain users propose goals and a set of conditions, outsourcing the complexity of interacting with the blockchain, ensuring control over assets and cryptographic identities while achieving optimal paths.” A transaction aggregator is an example of a long-running intent where users propose goals and constraints such as “complete the A/B trade with the optimal price for X quantity,” and the aggregator is responsible for finding the optimal price routing path across different liquidity pools and simulating the optimal path execution results for users on the front end to achieve the intent.
Based on the above description, a general Intent-Centric architecture is shown in Figure 1, with ATO (Abstracted Transaction Objects), representing user intent. The main roles in the process include Client, Driver, and Solver, each responsible for specific tasks.
Client: The front end that interacts with users, translating user input from natural language into machine language form, a structured intent description including goals and constraints.
Driver: Plays the most crucial role in the entire intent architecture, including ATO broadcasting to the memory pool, where all solvers can initiate their execution processes in the memory pool to find the best solutions. It simulates and verifies all solver solutions, ensuring their validity and security, then publishes the winning solutions. It aggregates solutions from different ATOs for a given intent, combining them into a unified execution plan for final implementation.
Solver: The implementer of the intent, usually multiple, providing the optimal target execution path based on intent constraints.
Since the concept of Intent was introduced, it has sparked many discussions within the industry. Some criticisms suggest that intent-centric leans more towards abstract product design philosophy, making it challenging to implement in engineering terms. Issues like the security of user assets, information loss during the translation from natural language to machine language, the entry, selection, settlement, and incentive mechanism design for solvers are all significant challenges in specific implementations.
Optopia Architecture Analysis: AI Agent-Based Solution
As mentioned earlier, the specific engineering implementation of intent-centric architecture is challenging within the current blockchain architecture. Most existing solutions are merely encapsulated one layer above the chain. Optopia is the first to design a dedicated Ethereum layer2 on the chain for intent engineering implementation and specifically build an intent-centric release framework for the on-chain AI ecosystem.
As shown in Figure 2, from a modular perspective, Optopia is built on the Layer2 using 4everland’s Raas (Rollup as a Service) service. With the Op stack framework, decentralized storage solution Arweave is chosen as the DA service provider to ensure data persistence and accessibility, creating a low-cost, efficient, and modular infrastructure ledger for AI agents to execute Web3 transactions within a standardized framework.
In the intent release center framework designed in Optopia, as shown in Figure 3, it includes several key roles:
Intent Publisher: Responsible for creating intents within the intent center and incentivizing AI agents to execute these intents by allocating any valuable tokens. Intents are actionable goals or tasks that AI agents can undertake.
AI Agent: Interacts with the intent center to access intents, use available knowledge to attempt and complete these intents. They receive rewards in the form of reward points upon successful completion of intents, which they can use for reward distribution.
Builder: Trains and releases knowledge for AI agents to learn and use in the AI ecosystem, playing a crucial role in enhancing the capabilities of AI agents. Builders receive incentives based on the token share of reward points obtained by AI agents using their knowledge.
$OPAI Token Holder: $OPAI holders can lock OPAI tokens and receive voting locked tokens (vlOPAI). By using these tokens for voting, $OPAI holders can determine the emission weight of intents within the intent center. This weight, in turn, affects the OPAI rewards that AI agents receive upon completing each intent.
In the general intent execution framework mentioned earlier, the Solver is the entity that executes user Intent, whether in an on-chain or off-chain environment. Solvers compete to solve user-proposed Intents to receive rewards. This model encourages efficiency and innovation as multiple solvers try to complete user Intents in the most effective way.
Optopia further develops this concept through its unique framework. In the Optopia ecosystem, AI agents take on the role of solvers but with deeper integration and encapsulation. This means that AI agents are not just independent entities executing intents; they can also leverage specific knowledge bases created and optimized by builders to enhance their execution capabilities. If the previous standard solvers were compared to the last generation of search engines, able to execute along preset paths, then the replacement with AI agents upgrades them to GPT, capable of more intelligent path searches with greater freedom.
Combining Crypto Economics: The Integration of Incentive Frameworks
Although Optopia has not yet released a more refined economic model, we can get a glimpse from its intent release center framework. Faced with potential discrepancies in AI Agent execution results and inconsistencies between incentives and goals, Optopia introduces the classic ve model into the ecosystem.
The execution process of the intent release center framework is as follows:
Intent Creation and Incentivization: Intent publishers create intents within the intent center and allocate valuable tokens to incentivize AI agents to effectively execute these intents.
Knowledge Training and Release: Builders train and release knowledge for AI agents to access, learn, and use. Their incentives are related to the token share of reward points obtained by AI agents using their knowledge.
AI Agent Interaction: AI agents interact with the intent center to access intents and use their knowledge to attempt and complete allocated intents.
Reward Allocation: Upon successful completion of an intent, AI agents receive reward points, and builders receive token shares, helping distribute intent rewards.
$OPAI Holder Participation: $OPAI holders have the opportunity to participate in the governance of the intent center by locking $OPAI tokens, receiving vlOPAI, and voting for the emission weight of intents.
Firstly, the accuracy of AI Agent execution results is crucial for the overall development of the Optopia ecosystem, with direct implications on the price of its ecosystem token, $OPAI. Therefore, voters staking $OPAI have an incentive to vote for the best AI Agents to maintain the price of their assets. Poor-performing agents receive reduced incentives, motivating builders to continuously optimize agents to cover their training costs and receive rewards, while also receiving incentives from intent creators during the optimization process.
The ve model often plays an excellent role in balancing various stakeholders’ interests. Furthermore, at the chain level, it can create enough second-layer product space for ecosystem developers, such as developing a Convex-like product on top of the intent governance framework, freeing up vlOPAI liquidity and enabling delegated voting. The previous round of DeFi Governance War may appear in a different form within Optopia.
Optopia Overview: Summary and Future Outlook
In Optopia’s design, the introduction of AI Agents expands the intelligent execution paths at the chain level for Solver capabilities. The adoption of the ve model perfectly solves the incentive issue for Solvers. Since its mainnet release, Optopia is attracting more and more Agent builders to join, to truly realize its role as a user-friendly gateway for millions of users entering Web3.
On June 13th, Optopia announced the completion of its seed round financing, with participation from leading venture capital firms such as G·Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, JRR Capital, KKP International Limited, ZenTrading, Klein Labs, MCS Capital, and prominent blockchain individual investor MrBlock, bringing in funds and strategic guidance for Optopia. The raised funds will be used to accelerate the continuous upgrade and optimization of Optopia’s infrastructure, enhance AI capabilities, build decentralized technology, and increase community participation.
As an ordinary user, Optopia also provides an opportunity to participate in this feast and obtain early chips. Optopia conducts initial token issuance through Gas Mining, where in specific Booster Events, users can mine by consuming gas fees during transactions to receive corresponding token rewards. This issuance further strengthens user participation in the network, initiates initial transaction activities, and network growth for the entire economy to kickstart.
AI, as one of the biggest narratives in this current bull market, its organic integration with crypto is an exploration that many professionals are actively pursuing. As a pioneer in the field of AI Agents, Optopia’s practice of combining AI with Intent also holds positive exploratory significance for the entire market.
