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How it works

Ophis sits on top of CoW Protocol's batch-auction settlement layer. The app opens a token-selection form; developers can optionally use the natural-language parser before building an order. Circle and other cross-chain routes have separate execution and recovery steps.

The intent lifecycle​

 plain English          structured order           batch auction          settlement
┌──────────────┐  parse ┌──────────────────┐ sign ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────┐
│ "swap 100    │ ─────▶ │ sell: USDC       │ ───▶ │ solvers compete  │ ─▶ │ uniform-price│
│  USDC for    │  LLM   │ buy:  ETH        │ wallet│ for best execution│   │ on-chain     │
│  ETH on Base"│        │ amount: 100      │      │ (DEX / P2P / xchain)│  │ settlement   │
└──────────────┘        │ chain: base      │      └──────────────────┘    └──────────────┘
                        └──────────────────┘

1. Intent parsing​

Free-form text is sent to a Cloudflare Pages Function that proxies LibertAI's Qwen 3.6 27B (open-weights, hosted on Aleph Cloud) with a pinned system prompt and temperature: 0 to reduce extraction variability. The proxy:

  • holds the LibertAI API key server-side (browsers never see it),
  • validates symbol syntax and source-text spans, not token contracts,
  • validates the chain against its 14 supported slugs, including Arc, and
  • returns a structured ParsedIntent the UI uses to pre-fill the form.

The parser only normalizes language. It never places, signs, or executes a trade, that is always the user's wallet on the frontend.

2. Order signing​

Once the form is filled, the user signs an order with their own wallet (EIP-712 for EOAs, ERC-1271 for smart-contract wallets). The signature authorizes a limit, a minimum acceptable output, not a specific execution path. Solvers may only do better than the limit, never worse.

3. Batch auction & solver competition​

Signed orders collect into batches. For each batch, solvers search for the best way to settle every order simultaneously, routing through on-chain liquidity, matching orders against each other peer-to-peer (no liquidity pool needed), or bridging cross-chain. Solvers bid, and the one that maximises total surplus wins the right to settle.

On Optimism, Unichain, Robinhood Chain, and Arc, Ophis runs its own stack and operates the solver itself, competing across several routing strategies (a baseline on-chain router plus multiple DEX aggregators) that bid against each other per batch, so there is genuine price competition even though the solver is Ophis-operated. The on-chain allowlist (GPv2AllowListAuthentication) controls who may settle, and additional independent solvers can be authorized over time. On the CoW-hosted chains Ophis surfaces, CoW's established solver network competes. Your protection is identical either way: the limit price in your signed order is enforced on-chain, so any solver can only fill it at or better than the price you signed.

4. Uniform-price settlement​

The winning solver settles the batch onchain using uniform clearing prices per token pair and enforcing each order's signed limits. Offchain ERC-20 orders avoid the user's public-mempool router transaction, and peer matching can avoid an AMM leg. These mechanisms mitigate MEV; they do not eliminate all risks in solver execution, external liquidity, sequencers or bridge delivery. See Security & audits.

What Ophis runs​

ComponentDescription
FrontendA fork of the CoW Swap frontend with token selection, route review and provider-specific bridge flows.
Intent-parser proxyA Cloudflare Pages Function in front of LibertAI Qwen 3.6 27B. See Intent API.
Self-hosted orderbook & solverOphis operates Optimism, Unichain, Robinhood Chain and Arc; see the hosts in Status. CoW-hosted chains use api.cow.fi and CoW's solver network.
Settlement contractsOphis deployments of GPv2Settlement, alongside allowlist and fee-handling contracts. Deployment configuration and review scope matter; see Security & audits.
Rebate indexerIndexes volume-tier rebates that accrue to traders. See Fees & rebates.

Cross-chain via NEAR Intents​

Solana, Bitcoin, Monad, Hyperliquid (Hypercore), X Layer, Sui, Tron, Starknet and Zcash are available as sources and destinations through NEAR Intents for supported assets and quoted routes. From a batch-auction source, the user supplies the destination address and authorizes the source order. Selecting an additional source in the standalone app instead opens an externally funded flow: review the quote and refund address, confirm, then transfer the quoted deposit from the source wallet. It does not submit a CoW order on that external network. Destination delivery is separate from source settlement and can require recovery. Across and Circle routes have different coverage and wallet restrictions; see Networks & assets.

Where to go next​