tl;dr: All you need to do is lock-in anon.

For the past few years, developing an entirely new protocol has been brutal for developers. Forking the Uniswap codebase, either V2 or V3, make your customizations, spend another 50k getting said codebase re-audited, attracting new liquidity to your protocol, etc. This was a feat most teams could not push through, with most forks either not making it to prod, and the ones that did make it to proud reach nowhere near the levels volume of Uniswap. Below you can see that Uniswap V2 has been forked over half a thousand times and V3 over 70 times, and that’s just what actually made it mainnet.

Not only have DeFi protocols been an absolute PITA to bootstrap, but moreover botostrapping your own decentralized networks were hard too. Building the underlying trust networks for these systems to years. Getting validators to sign up to your network, going through the 7 hells of game theory to figure out a proper system, etc.

But, this year, all of that is changing with the coming mainnet release of Uniswap V4 Hooks & Eigen Layer’s AVS system.

There’s already plenty of content on what Uniswap V4 is, but if you don’t know, here’s a quick sypnopsis on uniswap there’s essentially about 2 main core functionaities: swapping and modifiying your LP positions. Throughout you doing these actions, hooks are smart contract functions that can essentially write their own custom functionality that happen at different stages of your transaction to essentially overwrite or enhance what ‘s happening on a Uniswap transaction.

• beforeSwap

• afterSwap

• beforeModifyLiquidity

• afterModifyLiquidity

• etc(there’s a few more, you can see them here on the Uniswap V4 Core codebase)

Hooks allow developers to build their own dexes without having to fork the Uniswap protocol. And depending on the implementation of your protocol, it can significantly drop the costs of getting your protocol audited, as you’ll only pay for the hook functions and not the underlying protocol. So essentially, there may be many ETH <> USDC pools in the future all using uniswap hooks. Some may do something like let you swap eth on mainnet for a token on Base, others may have a lending protocol built in that pursues yield on “dead“ liquidity ticks, etc. This makes the Uniswap protocol not just an AMM protocol(which is already a feat), but also it makes the Uniswap protocol a developer platform for the next generation of DeFi dexes.

So tl;dr on this 👇

Ok, now on to EigenLayer. I’m going to greatly shorten this part but essentially, EigenLayer revolutionizes the way decentralized networks are bootstrapped by leveraging the security and trust of Ethereum's existing staker ecosystem. With EigenLayer, devs can deploy arbitrary node software across a network that inherently trusts and secures these operations, eliminating the need to build and secure a new network from scratch.

Ok so, intents are a huge subject that and DeFi intent based protocols take many different shapes and sizes, from bridging to orderbooks. The goal here is to make DeFi a significantly more better experience than CEXs buy providing better prices and liquidity. I will not cover too much about intents but its kinda sorta this meme below(mostly inspired form how CoW Swap works)

• Basically a user sends an “intent“. I have x eth and want y meme coins.

• My off chain solver takes that order and the other orders happening and attempts to find the best prices for these orders across different DEXs/Aggregators

• My solver sorts out who gets what.

• I get my tokens, then solver takes a little bit off the top.

• I get my money, no questions asked!

Intent based protocols are the next generation of DeFi protocols and will bring more users on-chain as DEXs eat into CEXs like Binance and Coinbase.

Ok so, how does all of this come together?

Alright, let's incorporate the idea of using relayers within the EigenLayer's AVS network to assist the Uniswap V4 Hooks, creating a unique and innovative intents-based protocol. Here’s an entirely new approach, focusing on enhancing transaction efficiency and reducing slippage through strategic use of relayers.

Protocol Concept: Cross Chain Swapping Protocol(Similar to Across Protocol)

Overview: This protocol is a defi protocol that enables secure and efficient cross-chain token swaps by utilizing Uniswap V4 Hooks for on-chain actions and EigenLayer’s AVS network to manage off-chain operations and cross-chain communication.

1. Core Features:

   1. Cross-Chain Swap Facilitation: Streamlines the process of swapping tokens across various blockchains, integrating multiple blockchains into a single interface.

   2. Relayer Networks for Efficiency: Uses relayers within the EigenLayer network to validate and relay transaction data between chains, ensuring timely and secure transfers.

   3. Transaction Cost Optimization: Leverages Uniswap V4 Hooks to dynamically adjust the swapping process based on the current gas fees and exchange rates, aiming to minimize user costs.

   4. Enhanced Security Protocols: Implements advanced security measures, including multi-signature confirmations and smart contract audits, to protect against common cross-chain vulnerabilities like replay attacks.

   How It Works:

   1. Setting Up Swap Intents: Users specify the details of the swap, including the asset and amount they wish to swap and the target blockchain. This intent is processed by ChainBridge and set up using a beforeSwap hook.

   2. Cross-Chain Communication: EigenLayer relayers facilitate the communication between blockchains. They verify the user's assets on the source chain, lock or burn these assets, and instruct the target chain to mint or unlock the corresponding amount of the target asset.

   3. Optimizing the Swap: During the swap execution, Uniswap V4’s beforeSwap hook is used to check for the best exchange rates and lowest transaction fees, adjusting the swap parameters in real time. After the execution, the afterSwap hook finalizes the transaction details, ensuring everything aligns with the initial user intent and current market conditions.

   4. Completing the Transaction: Once the transaction is verified on the target blockchain, the relayers update the transaction status on both chains. The user receives the swapped asset in their wallet on the target blockchain, and the transaction is completed with final confirmations.