What are Intents Actually Solving? with Declan Hannon (Aurora Labs)

In this episode, Austin chats with Declan from Aurora Labs about building on NEAR’s Intents architecture. Declan explains why intents go beyond “a better bridge UI" and how Aurora Intents actually work, enabling one-click cross-chain journeys. They discuss how the protocol helps create liquidity, adoption metrics (over $21B lifetime volume, about $1B monthly), and use cases across wallets, neobanks, payments, RWAs, and more. The conversation also explores inherent cross-chain risks, as highlighted by a Litecoin reorg double-spend incident, and the need for insurance-like protections for onchain products.  0:00 - Aurora Intents Overview  02:57 - Intents vs Bridges  05:21- Solver Network Explained  06:23 - Aurora Intents’ Behind the Scenes Flow  07:43 - Liquidity and Market Making  08:55 - Real World Use Cases  11:25 - Confidential Intents  16:11 - Intents’ Speed Tradeoffs and Risks  17:30 - Litecoin Incident Earlier This Year  19:51 - Liability and Insurance  26:08 - Future Verticals for Intents  28:36 - Where to Learn More Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.