One of the key benefits of Mantis is the optimal routing of users’ intents. Cross-chain routes (“solutions”) to optimally execute these orders are created by Mantis solvers. These solutions will eventually be able to make use of many sources of liquidity including order matching via Coincidence of Wants (CoWs), automated market makers (AMMs), solvers’ own funds, and orderflow auctions (OFAs).

The concept of optimizing order execution via liquidity aggregation is not new. In fact, Uniswap’s extremely popular product UniswapX does just this. However, UniswapX is only available on Ethereum mainnet. Mantis introduces optimized order execution to Solana with enhanced cross-chain capabilities and other benefits that will be implemented in the future. As a result, Mantis fulfills an unmet market need within the Solana ecosystem.

UniswapX and the Benefits of Cross-Chain, Optimized Intents Routing

UniswapX was introduced in July 2023. Uniswap describes this product as “a new permissionless, open source (GPL), Dutch auction-based protocol for trading across AMMs and other liquidity sources”. Effectively, UniswapX introduced cross-chain, optimized routing of intents to Ethereum and its Layer 2s.

In this protocol, users submit a new type of order called Exclusive Dutch Orders. These orders specify minimum and maximum outputs a user is willing to receive on a trade over a set timeframe. Key participants in the UniswapX framework are as follows:

• Swappers: these are users of Uniswap X who submit Exclusive Dutch Orders

• Fillers: these actors pick up signed orders and compete to execute them using any source of liquidity they have access to

• Reactors: these entities settle UniswapX orders

A more detailed description of the UniswapX protocol and how it works can be found in the UniswapX Whitepaper.

Through this architecture, UniswapX introduces a number of benefits, including:

• Better prices due to aggregated liquidity

• Most swaps are gasless (meaning users don’t need the chain’s native token)

• MEV protections

• No costs for failed transactions

• Cross-chain swaps (in the future)

Since its introduction a little over a year ago, UniswapX has proven to be quite popular. Here are a few key statistics at the time of writing:

• All-time volume: $10.9 billion1

• Weekly volume: $18.2 million1

• All-time transactions: 606,4552

• Weekly transactions: 7451

• Total number of unique swappers: 242,1502

*1Data from https://dune.com/flashbots/uniswap-x *

*2Data from https://dune.com/cryptokoryo/uniswapx *

Despite its significant usership (indicating a clear market demand for its services), UniswapX remains limited to the Ethereum mainnet. Moreover, there is no protocol similar to UniswapX available on other networks like Solana. Therefore, there is a large market opportunity for another project to provide optimized intent settlement on Solana. This is where Mantis comes in: providing the many benefits of UniswapX (deriving from optimized, intent-based execution) - with additional capability for orders on Solana and other IBC-enabled chains.

How Mantis Compares to UniswapX

Similarly to Mantis, UniswapX is an auction-driven routing protocol that leverages AMMs and other sources of liquidity. Yet, there are a number of key differences that enable Mantis to provide new utility to users:

Virtual Machine & Interoperability

It is built on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), making it compatible with Ethereum natively. In comparison, Mantis is built on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), making it compatible with Solana natively. There are many benefits to Mantis’s construction as a rollup on the SVM. This includes faster speeds, customizability, privacy control, enhanced scalability, and more. We describe our rationale for building Mantis as a rollup on Solana in detail here.

Interoperability & Bridging

Both Mantis and UniswapX focus on cross-chain swaps. Mantis accomplishes this by making use of the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) Protocol connections developed by the Picasso Network. These connections allow Mantis to have broader interoperability with Ethereum and its L2s, Cosmos, Polkadot, Kusama, and more chains in the future.

As a result, swaps on Mantis are trust-minimized, with no reliance upon a third party that may misbehave. UniswapX, however, is currently only able to operate on Ethereum, though it has plans for Ethereum L2s and cross-chain swaps in the future.

Network Actors:

The solver role on Mantis is similarly mirrored on UniswapX, though it is spread across two actors: Fillers and Reactors. Fillers solve intents, while Reactors execute these solutions. On Mantis, these two functionalities are both completed by solvers.

Order Types:

UniswapX processes orders called Exclusive Dutch Orders. These closely resemble Dutch auctions. Exclusive Dutch Orders are unique in that they execute at a price dependent upon time of block inclusion. The price starts out at a value that is estimated to be better for the user than market price, then slowly decays. The decaying nature of Exclusive Dutch Orders creates competition amongst fillers. These are similar to an intent on Mantis in that these orders leave some room for flexibility.  In our v1, we will accept intents for swaps, but eventually we will enable all sorts of order types.

Summary

Here’s a summary on how these two protocols compare:

Both Mantis and UniswapX serve similar functions: aggregating liquidity and creating a competition for user orders to be solved. As a result, these protocols provide best execution. However, UniswapX remains limited to Ethereum mainnet. With Mantis, the valuable benefits of optimized intent execution are delivered to the Solana ecosystem for the first time - with additional plans for expansion into cross-chain order optimization.