Intent-Based Trading Concentrates Order Flow in a Handful of Solvers
Users get better prices. Researchers warn the winner-take-most dynamic recreates the intermediary that DEXs were meant to remove.
Analysis of settled intent auctions over the past quarter shows that three solvers won the substantial majority of order flow, with the leading participant clearing more volume than the rest of the field combined.
The mechanism rewards scale directly. A solver with more inventory, better venue connectivity and lower latency can quote inside everyone else, win more flow, and reinvest the proceeds in exactly those advantages.
Users are not obviously worse off today: measured price improvement against reference venues has been positive and stable. The concern researchers raise is conditional, describing what a concentrated solver set could extract once competition thins.
Proposed remedies include randomised tie-breaking, batch settlement windows and mandatory disclosure of solver ownership. None has been adopted at scale, and each imposes a cost on the price improvement users currently enjoy.
- DEX
- intents
- solvers
- MEV
About the author
Alistair Kwan — Alistair Kwan runs MyBunnyFarm's data desk, building the datasets behind the newsroom's charts and stress-testing the numbers other people publish. He writes the methodology notes attached to our analytical pieces and holds a master's in statistics.
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Corrections to this report: corrections desk. Nothing in this article is investment advice.