原文链接：https://www.paradigm.xyz/2023/06/intents

内容

1. 引言

2. 什么是意图？

   1. 意图的过去与未来

   2. 中间商及其内存池

      1. 无需许可的内存池

      2. 有许可的“内存池”

      3. 混合解决方案

3. 可能出现的问题？

   1. 订单流

   2. 信任

   3. 不透明

4. 风险缓解

5. 结论

引言

最近，关于“意图”及其应用的讨论成为以太坊社区的主导话题。

如果一笔交易明确指出了“如何”执行一个动作，那么一个意图则指的是“什么”是该动作的期望结果。如果一笔交易说“执行A然后B，准确支付C以换取X”，那么一个意图则说“我想要X，并且我愿意支付至多C”。

这种声明性范式为用户体验和效率的显著改进打开了激动人心的大门。有了意图，用户可以简单地表达期望的结果，同时将实现该结果的任务外包给精通此道的第三方。意图的概念与当今用户必须明确指定每个参数的命令式交易范式形成对比。

虽然这些改进的承诺为生态系统提供了迫切需要的进步，但基于意图的设计在以太坊上也可能对链下基础设施产生重大影响。特别是，它们与MEV相关活动和市场控制有重要联系。本文旨在简要定义意图及其好处，探讨实施它们所涉及的风险，以及讨论潜在的缓解措施。

什么是意图？

当前用户与以太坊互动的标准方法是发起并签署交易，这是一种特定格式的消息，提供了以太坊虚拟机（EVM）执行状态转换所需的所有必要信息。然而，创建交易可能是一件复杂的事情。创建交易需要考虑到复杂的智能合约网络和诸如nonce管理之类的细节，同时需要持有特定资产以支付gas费。这种复杂性导致了用户体验不佳和效率损失，因为用户在没有足够信息或复杂执行策略的情况下被迫做出决策。

意图的出现是为了减轻用户的这些负担。非正式地说，意图是一组声明性的约束，用户通过签名这些约束，可以将交易创建外包给第三方，而无需完全放弃对交易方的控制。

在标准的基于交易的流程中，一次交易签名允许验证者遵循确切的一条计算路径与某个状态相对应，而小费则激励验证者这样做。另一方面，意图并没有具体指定必须采取哪条计算路径，而是允许任何满足特定约束条件的路径。通过签名并分享一个意图，用户实际上是授权接收者代表他们选择一个计算路径（见下图）。这种区别允许我们对意图给出稍微严格一点的定义：作为允许从给定起始状态进行一系列状态转换的签名消息，其特殊情况是允许唯一转换的交易。尽管如此，我们将继续将“意图”与交易区别开来。

重要的是，许多意图可以包含在单一交易中，允许匹配重叠的意图，提高gas和经济效率，例如在构建者维护的订单簿中，两个订单可以在进入市场之前相互抵消。其他应用包括跨领域意图——在不同领域上签署一条消息而不是多个交易——使用不同的重播阻力方案，以及更灵活的用户gas支付方式，如允许第三方赞助gas或用不同代币支付。

意图的过去和未来

意图的创建是为了外包与区块链交互的复杂性，同时允许用户保持对他们资产和加密身份的控制。

您可能会注意到，这些想法中的许多与已经运作多年的系统相对应：

限价订单：如果我收到至少200 Y，可以从我的账户中取走100 X。

CowSwap风格的拍卖：与上述相同，但依靠第三方或机制匹配多个订单以最大化执行质量。

gas赞助：用USDC而不是ETH支付gas。意图只能在有匹配的支付ETH费用的意图时实现。

委托：只允许以某些预授权的方式与某些账户互动。只有当最终交易符合意图中指定的访问控制列表时，意图才能实现。

交易批处理：允许批量处理意图以节省gas。

聚合器：只使用“最佳”价格/收益进行操作。通过展示在多个场所进行了聚合并且采取了最优路径的证明，就可以实现意图。

展望未来，意图在跨链MEV（例如SUAVE）、ERC4337风格的账户抽象化，甚至是Seaport订单的背景下重新激发了兴趣！虽然ERC4337正在全力推进，但像跨领域意图这样的新颖应用仍需要进一步研究。关于意图及其应用的进一步讨论可以在这次讲话中找到。

关键的是，在所有旧的和新的基于意图的应用中，至少需要有另一个知道意图、有动力执行意图并能及时做到这一点的参与方。为了确定意图驱动系统的功效、信任假设和更广泛的影响，必须提出这些参与方是谁、如何执行以及他们的激励是什么的问题。

中间人及其内存池

意图找到愿意的中间人的最明显途径是以太坊内存池。不幸的是，当前设计不支持意图的传播。担忧DoS攻击可能意味着，在长期内，以太坊内存池对完全通用意图的一般支持是不可能的。正如我们下面将看到的，以太坊内存池开放且无需许可的性质为意图的采纳带来了额外的障碍。

在缺少以太坊内存池的情况下，意图系统设计者现在面临一些设计问题。一个高层次的决策是，意图将被传播到一个有权限的集合中，还是以无权限的方式提供，以便任何方都可以执行意图。

无需许可的内存池

人们可能会追求一种设计，即一个分散的API，允许在系统中的各种节点间传播意图，为执行者提供无需许可的接入。这在过去已有先例。例如，在0x协议中，中继器之间互相传播限价订单，并在匹配时将其上链。这一点也在共享ERC4337内存池的背景下被探索，以对抗集中化和审查风险。然而，这样的无需许可的“意图池”的设计面临着一些重大挑战：

**抵抗拒绝服务攻击：**人们可能必须限制意图的功能，以避免攻击向量（请参阅ERC4337提案以获取更多讨论）

**传播激励：**对于许多应用程序而言，执行一个意图是一个有利可图的活动。因此，运营意图池的节点有不传播意图的激励，以减少执行意图的竞争。

**MEV：**依赖链下行为者的良好行为来保证执行质量的意图，可能难以使用公共的、无需许可的意图池。如果执行不佳是有利可图的，无需许可的意图池很可能导致这种结果。这与今天以太坊内存池中的夹击行为类似，预计会成为DeFi相关意图的广泛问题。在这里可能的前进路径可能是无需许可，但加密的意图池。

有许可的“内存池”

一个受信任的中心化API具有更强的抵抗拒绝服务攻击能力，并且不需要传播意图。信任模型也为MEV问题提供了一定的解决方案。只要信任假设成立，执行质量应当得到保证。受信任的中间人也可能与他们的声誉相关，从而提供了提供良好执行的激励。因此，短期内，有许可的意图池对意图驱动的应用程序开发者来说很有吸引力。然而，如我们所知，强信任假设有其缺点，且在某种程度上与区块链精神背道而驰。这些问题将在下面提及。

混合解决方案

有一些解决方案是上述方法的混合体。例如，人们可以有有许可的传播，但无需许可的执行（假设信任假设成立），反之亦然。一个常见的混合解决方案例子是订单流拍卖。

这些设计的高层思想是，需要对手方的用户可能需要区分更好和更差的对手方（例如，以有利的价格进行交易的另一方）。设计流程通常包括一个受信任的方，他们接收来自用户的意图（或交易）并代表他们促成拍卖。参与拍卖（有时）是无需许可的。

这类设计有自己的缺点，可能会受到许多关于有许可的意图池的担忧，但也有一些重要的不同之处，稍后将变得明显。

底线：意图驱动的应用程序涉及的不仅仅是与智能合约交互的新消息格式，它们还涉及以替代内存池形式的传播和对手方发现机制。设计一个既符合激励又同时不中心化的意图发现和匹配机制并非易事。

可能出现的问题？

尽管意图是一种令人兴奋的新交易模式，但它们的广泛采用可能意味着用户活动向替代内存池转移的更大趋势的加速。如果管理不当，这种转移可能会带来中心化的风险，并巩固寻租中间人的地位。

订单流

如果意图执行是需要许可的，并且许可集合选择不当，那么从公共内存池中迁移出去可能会威胁以太坊区块生产的中心化。

目前，以太坊的大部分区块生产都是通过MEV-Boost来实现的，MEV-Boost是提议者-构建者分离（PBS）的协议外实现，并且目前的路线图没有显示这个接口会很快改变。PBS依赖于区块构建者的竞争市场，将MEV通道到验证者集合。PBS中的一个主要担忧是，区块构建者能够获得生产有价值区块所需的原材料的独家访问权——交易和意图，也就是“订单流”。用PBS的语言来说，对意图的有许可访问将被称为“独家订单流”（EOF）。如本文所讨论，EOF落入错误方手中会威胁PBS所依赖的市场结构，因为订单流的独家性意味着对抗竞争力量的护城河。

控制着以太坊大部分订单流的区块构建者（或其合作实体）将能够生产大多数主网区块，从而开启审查的通道。由于网络依赖于构建者之间的竞争来将价值通道给验证者（或将来烧毁），单一构建者的主导将构成价值从以太坊转移到构建者的转变。寻租和审查无疑是对协议的重要威胁。

信任

由于许多解决方案需要信任中介，新意图基础架构的开发受到高准入门槛的阻碍，这意味着创新和确保执行质量的竞争率较低。

在最坏的情况下，用户发现自己处于这样的位置：只有一个单一的方执行意图，比如上一节中的垄断区块构建者。在这样的世界中，垄断的区块构建者将能够提取租金，任何有关意图应如何处理的新提议如果不被构建者采用，都将得不到推动。面对垄断者，个人用户失去了谈判力——当用户使用意图给中间人增加更多自由度时，这种效应会加剧。

不幸的是，由于中心化的基础设施，市场停滞不是仅仅局限于对构建者市场的担忧。即使对于非区块构建操作，高准入门槛也可能将中间人置于强大的位置，因为他们面临的竞争很少。例如，考虑当前的订单流拍卖市场状况。像Flashbots和CoWswap这样的几个实体接收了大部分的订单流。订单流的分配很大程度上是因为这些实体已经存在多年或与知名实体有关，这意味着它们成功赢得了一定程度的公众信任。如果一个新的OFA设计试图进入市场，操作新OFA的人将不得不花很长时间来说服用户和钱包，他们是值得信赖的，不会滥用他们的位置。进行这样的信任赢取活动当然构成了一个巨大的准入门槛。

订单流拍卖市场只是最近开始引起注意，竞争如何发展还有待观察，但市场确实提供了一个例子，说明在哪些情况下，有许可、受信任的内存池可能会奠定少数强大行动者的地位，损害用户的最佳利益。

EIP4337意图格式提供了另一个我们可能会确立某种机制的风险的例子。想象一个支持4337意图的受信任架构已经到位的世界。如果提出了另一种意图格式——也许服务于额外的用例，如跨域功能——但已建立的受信任中间人没有采用这种新格式（毕竟，它没有太多的采用并且与他们的商业模式竞争），新格式的实现将需要建立对新实体的信任。同样，我们发现自己处于这样一个位置：创新和挑战现状面临基于信任的准入门槛。

不透明性

由于许多意图架构涉及用户对其链上资产的某些控制权的交出，且有许可的内存池意味着从外部来看具有不可穿透性，我们有可能建立一个不透明的系统，在这个系统中，用户是否能满足其期望以及生态系统中的威胁是否被检测到都不清楚。

上述部分涉及订单流市场中的权力不平衡对用户和协议可能造成的风险。一个相关的担忧是，正在用户和区块链之间发展的中间件和内存池生态系统，甚至对于精明的观察者来说也变得不透明。这一担忧对于那些寻求允许用户外包重要决策，如订单路由的基于意图的应用程序来说尤其相关。

MEV对用户执行产生负面影响的情况通常是由于交易放弃给执行者的自由度很高（例如，滑点限制）。因此，逻辑上不难断言，那些放弃更大自由度的基于意图的应用程序在执行系统设计上应该更加谨慎。在这方面的最坏情况是，在使用基于意图的应用程序时，涉及签署一个意图，这个意图消失了（如果你愿意的话，进入了黑暗森林），然后不知何故作为一个或多个交易实现，而没有清晰的说明交易是如何或由谁创建的。当然，监控这样的生态系统的能力也与EOF和基于信任的固化问题有关。如果这个生态系统即使对最精明的观察者来说也是模糊的，以太坊社区如何监控其区块生产生态系统健康的威胁呢？

风险缓解

以太坊内存池是有限的。对于一些应用来说，这是因为它缺乏隐私（夹击），对于其他应用来说，则是因为它无法支持更广泛的消息格式。这使得钱包和应用开发者处于困难的位置，因为他们必须找到某种方式连接用户和区块链，同时避免上述突出的危险。

在审视上述问题时，我们可以推断出理想系统的一些属性。这样的系统应该是无需许可的，以便任何人都可以匹配和执行意图，同时不牺牲太多的执行质量；通用的，这样部署新应用不需要建立新的内存池；并且是透明的，以便意图执行的过程可以公开报告，并且在隐私保证允许的情况下，提供执行质量审计的数据。

虽然像Flashbots和Anoma这样的团队正在努力实现一般性解决方案，以满足上述的隐私性和无需许可的要求，但理想的系统可能在短期内还不会准备就绪。因此，不同的解决方案可能会做出自己的权衡，以最好地服务于不同的应用。尽管像crlists这样的机制是对许多相同关于基于交易应用程序的担忧的回应而产生的，可能不适用于意图，但小工具，如允许用户在可能的情况下回退到交易，可能会很好地改善最坏的情况。同样，寻求推出意图池的应用程序，如果是无需许可的，则应力求通用性；如果是有许可的，则应谨慎选择中间人。

广义上，我们请求基于意图的应用程序设计者彻底考虑他们应用程序的链下影响，因为这些可能影响到更广泛的社区，不仅仅是他们的用户群体，我们还请求更广泛的社区对以太坊周围的链下生态系统的发展保持警惕。

结论

意图的采用代表了从命令式到声明式范式的转变，这承诺显著改善用户体验和由于MEV泄漏造成的效率损失。对这些应用程序的需求是明确的，许多基于意图的应用程序已被广泛使用了数年。

部分由ERC4337推动的意图的日益采用，很可能是加速从以太坊内存池到新场所的转移。虽然这种转移是正当的且不可避免的，但基于意图的应用程序设计者有充分的理由在其系统的链下组成部分设计时保持谨慎，同时强大的基础设施正在开发中。

在这个新兴的交易范式中，仍有大量的研究和工程工作要做，本文中未涉及的领域，如设计允许隐私的意图表达语言。如果你对这个或其他与意图相关的研究课题感兴趣，请联系0xquintus 或者georgios@paradigm.xyz。

特此感谢Dan Robinson、Charlie Noyes、Matt Huang、John Guibas、Xinyuan Sun和Elijah Fox对本文的反馈，以及Achal Srinivasan对图表的设计。

作者：Quintus Kilbourn, Georgios Konstantopoulos

Understanding Account Abstraction

At its core, account abstraction is a concept that seeks to decouple the logic of a transaction from its execution. In the traditional Ethereum model, accounts are imperative. This means they follow a strict and predetermined set of steps. For the end-user, this can translate to a complex and often unintuitive experience. Every action, be it sending Ether, interacting with a smart contract, or staking, requires specific steps with little to no flexibility.

Enter account abstraction, which proposes a shift from this imperative approach to a more declarative one. Instead of dictating exact steps, users express their intent. The system then determines the best way to achieve the desired outcome. This shift is not just about making Ethereum transactions simpler; it's about aligning the blockchain experience with how users think and what they intend to achieve.

The Rise of ERC-4337 and User Intent

The Ethereum community, ever responsive to the needs of its users, introduced ERC-4337, a proposal that brings account abstraction to the forefront. One of the standout features of this proposal is the integration of the 'user intent' concept. This is pivotal because it means that transactions become more intuitive. A user doesn't need to understand the intricate details of gas fees or contract interactions; they just need to know what they want, and the system takes care of the rest.

Imagine trying to send a friend some Ether as a birthday gift. In the traditional system, you'd need to calculate gas fees, ensure you have enough Ether to cover both the gift and the fees, and hope that network congestion doesn't make the transaction prohibitively expensive or slow. With account abstraction, you'd simply express your intent to send a specific amount, and the system would handle the details, ensuring your friend receives their gift without you having to navigate the complexities of the Ethereum network.

Why Mass Adoption Depends on Abstraction

At its heart, the challenge of mass adoption is one of user experience. Every major technological advancement that has seen widespread adoption did so because it offered users a simple, intuitive experience. Consider the rise of smartphones. While early mobile phones had numerous features, it was the introduction of intuitive touch interfaces, app ecosystems, and unified user experiences that drove the mass adoption of smartphones.

Similarly, for blockchain and Ethereum to achieve mass adoption, the experience needs to be user-centric. Asking the average person to understand gas fees, nonce values, and contract interactions is akin to asking every smartphone user to understand the intricacies of mobile operating systems or wireless protocols.

The Broader Implications for Ethereum's Ecosystem

Account abstraction isn't just about improving the user experience; it has profound implications for the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Developers, for instance, will have a richer toolkit at their disposal. They can create dApps that are not only more powerful but also more accessible, catering to both crypto enthusiasts and novices alike.

Moreover, with a more intuitive system, the entry barrier for newcomers is significantly lowered. This means that more people can participate in the Ethereum ecosystem, be it through decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), or other decentralized applications. This increased participation will drive network effects, where the value of the Ethereum ecosystem grows exponentially as more users join.

Conclusion: The Road Ahead

While the blockchain community should be lauded for its relentless pursuit of scalability and performance improvements, it's crucial not to lose sight of the end user. The future of Ethereum, and by extension, the broader blockchain world, hinges on making the technology accessible, understandable, and usable for everyone.

Account abstraction, as championed by proposals like ERC-4337, is that missing puzzle piece. It promises a future where using Ethereum is as intuitive as sending a text message or making an online purchase. And in that future lies the true mass adoption of blockchain technology.

In the end, the goal is clear: a decentralized world where everyone can participate without barriers. And with account abstraction, we're one step closer to turning that vision into reality.

Why is this and how did we get here? Fundamentally, the internet or Web 1.0 was built without an identity layer. It wasn’t needed, as everyone involved in its development was known and trusted. When social media and Web 2.0 came along, it allowed users to create their own identities – albeit provided by the big technology companies.

As Web3 and various blockchains are being built, the problem of identification remains: It’s still very difficult to know who, or perhaps what, you are connecting to. This puts huge limits on what we can do with this technology.

There are existing digital identity solutions which fall broadly into two camps: centralized and decentralized. Centralized digital identity solutions have been a hallmark of the journey from Web 1.0 to Web3. Even in the latest applications – such as account bound tokens that individuals receive after a KYC verification – centralized digital identification has proved remarkably enduring. Decentralized digital identity solutions are self-sovereign identity claims that are owned and stored locally by an individual. These may lack the ability to be verified and trusted. But what if there was a third way?

A new paradigm: social identity

Using advanced data science techniques, it’s now possible to identify individuals using the intersection of social data that will uniquely define a person's identity, what’s also known as their social graph. This does not mean that the name, address or photo of an individual will be shared, but rather that the footprint of their presence on-chain is unique and can be verified as an individual, rather than a bot. 

Relation Labs is pioneering this third way by analyzing the social relations of individuals in a decentralized way. This makes it possible for individuals to mint programmable NFTs called SBTs that are metadata linked and interconnected in a way that is machine understandable and interpretable (called Semantic SBTs). These represent proof not only of their identity but also of their friendships, affiliations, memberships, qualifications and even employment, on the chain.

The individual is sovereign in that their SBTs are held in their own wallets and written on public chains. The information can be kept private but the SBTs can be used publicly. Each SBT consists of a series of what are known in data science as “semantic triples.” This is a statement with three attributes, usually a subject, a predicate and an object such as “Jill knows John,” or “Jon attended a Web3 summit.”  

While each semantic triple, or SBT, can be used as an individual proof point, their utility grows exponentially  when collected. How does this work? In Relation’s model, these SBTs are all collected into what are called “Soulbound Journals,” or SBJs, which list all the identifying information of the account through its constituent Semantic SBTs. In turn, other accounts list mirrors of those Semantic SBTs. So if John knows Jill, then Jill knows John. 

Each account creates and maintains their own SBJs, which are essentially personalized distributed ledgers. These SBJs evolve over time as new SBTs within them are added or taken away or interact with other SBTs. In the same way that the semantic triples are the primitive building blocks in SBT, so the SBTs are primitive building blocks in SBJs. And these then become the basis for activity in Web3. 

There are several ways that SBJs can unlock decentralized Web3 activity by serving as identifiers and verifiers. They provide proof of attendance, proof of skill set and proof of personhood. They can provide protection against Sybil cyberattacks, where hackers create a large number of pseudonyms to exert control over a platform or protocol. People with shared slices of data, triples in SBT, can help to verify when there is a query. Furthermore, services can be target-marketed, based on the attributes or interests proved by SBJs to precisely match user needs and interests. They also help with social recovery wallets, as they allow you to assign your guardians based on the diversity of your social circle to avoid collusion.

By minting semantic SBTs, Web3 navigators can create a framework for representing and sharing information in a way that allows machines to understand and interpret the relationships between different data sources. This can improve the efficiency and accuracy of data analysis and enable new applications and services that require a deep understanding of the underlying data. In this way, semantic SBTs and SBJs are likely to be important tools for advancing the capabilities of Web3.

With programs included that incentivize participation, including tokens that can be earned by undertaking verification and identification, Semantic SBTs and SBJs introduced by Relation are likely to figure widely in the next stage of development of Web3, solving the paradox of building trust in a decentralized environment.

In the meantime, @web3isgreat tweeted that Coachella NFT Marketplace, which relies on FTX API, is also broken. The marketplace shows 0 NFTs.

There is still a large percentage of the collections that are hosting their metadata on a centralized server, like AWS. 

Why does decentralization matter?

Despite the image and metadata being broken, the tokens still and always belong to the owners. Thanks to cryptographic and blockchain technology, the tokens are designed to be owned and controlled by the owner without relying on centralized intermediaries.

In fact, many people are buying NFTs as an investment. NFTs by themselves are not investments, it merely represents a moment of radical potential for the re-appropriation of plundered data rights.

But is this really the case?

Buying an NFT Hosted on a centralized server is just like an old Chinese saying, buy a wooden box and return the pearls in it.

You are owning a token but do not own the data rights.

The issue gets worse when people start to investigate NFTs in many other fields other than digital assets. Such as using tokens to record people’s proof of attendance or other achievements. Once hackers, downtime, and errors happen to any of the centralized data hosts, the disaster begins.

Decentralized solutions

The first step is to store images on Arweave, a global, permanent hard drive built on the blockweave, a derivative of the blockchain. Arweave is building the web in which websites and applications are permanently stored, and the provenance of information can be traced. By paying to store it for at least two hundred years, we are eventually owning the data.

The next step we can do is to make it fully on-chain NFTs. The Proof of Merge NFT issued by a16z, created by Michael Blau (x0r) and  Mason Hall, is a good example. The proof of merge token is a commemorative token to a major planned Ethereum upgrade - The Merge. The token metadata captures the meaning of ‘proof of merge’ and even the image - the yin-yang symbol.

This an isolated case, the creators have no intention to use this for later data interpretation and integration, at least till now.

If we want to investigate the decentralized data layer on-chain further, we need to go one more step to model the data in a structured way, which is where semantic web technology comes in.

One of the approaches is based on the idea of adding semantic metadata, or information about the meaning and context of data, to NFT metadata to make it more easily understandable and interpretable by computers. This technology allows computers to process and analyze data, making it possible to develop more intelligent and useful Dapps. Some of the key technologies underlying the semantic web include RDF (Resource Description Framework), which is used to represent and encode semantic metadata.

By way of encoding the semantic metadata, we are essentially creating a decentralized way to publish data on-chain, link the data from various data sources, integrate the data from different sources and subsequently be able to query and retrieve information across these different sources.

This makes web3 easier for everyday navigators. So we know who we are connecting to and able to make an improved search. For example, who’s in my contacts is a member of the XYZ DAO so I can ask for a referral.

It enhances interoperability in the way that semantic web technology enables different web3-based systems and applications to better understand and share information, which can facilitate collaboration and improve the overall usability of the web3. So that no one is creating the data moat here.

It helps to build more intelligent web-based applications: With the ability to more effectively process and analyze data, it becomes possible to develop more intelligent and useful web3 applications, such as personalized recommendation systems and intelligent assistants.

It’s a wrap-up.

Issuing decentralized NFTs and buying decentralized NFTs protects the data sovereignty on Web3. Co-building the data layer is even building the public goods that benefit every corner of web3.

Building to remove the reliance on centralized intermediaries from every perspective is the mission of web3 builders.

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Suppose we want to navigate life in Web3, staking values to our communities, control and maintain our own identity related data. It is essential to have a decentralized social identity.

Relation is building the Social Identity Protocol, which is a platform-less Soul Bound Journal (SBJ) for Web3 natives to manage their evolving-over-time social related information among Soul Bound Tokens (SBTs). Our SBJ defines not only who we are, also to whom we are connected. The SBJ is fragmentary in SBTs, is social because we are related to others, is verifiable in decentralized manner because the information in SBJ has a mirror in other SBJs, and trustable.

The SBTs are collected verifications of various memberships, social positions, and experiences. It forms people’s on-chain reputations, just as people can aggregate physical documents to build offline ones. The Semantic SBTs are primitive building blocks of SBJ introduced by Relation Labs. It is built on top of existing ERC721 standards with the use of Semantic Triples, described by the graph data model Resource Description Framework, to enrich the SBT’s social metadata.

The Semantic SBTs could help resolve issues surrounding trust in the emergent decentralized social structure by providing the means to verify reputation. So, we can Know Your Souls in decentralized cooperations, reference checks and decentralized credits.

What’s more by applying semantic web technologies, we create the foundation for publishing and linking data, integrating data from multiple sources and subsequently being able to query and retrieve information across these different sources. This is the foundation future plural intelligence. It weakens the dominance and control of big names, make the web more personalizes, and makes info easier to reach.

What Are Soulbound Tokens (SBTs)?

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin first conceptualized SBTs in a co-authored paper titled “Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul.” The piece described soulbound tokens (SBTs) as non-transferable NFTs that can represent a social identity and experiences in a decentralized society.

In the world of Web3, participants have accounts, or wallets, that hold many SBTs corresponding to a series of affiliations, membership and credentials. The SBTs can be self-certified, and describe something about personal profile and interest. They can also be issued by other accounts that attest to the social relations of the participant.

In other words, an account holds the extended social existence described by the SBTs.

Though its proponents are still refining the concept and use cases, the paper highlights how soulbound tokens could be pivotal in creating a decentralized society. But while the existence of SBTs can create a social framework, there still needs to be a way to create the connectedness of SBTs through relationships.

The Semantic SBTs explained

The SBTs are some variants of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). The current NFT issuing practice writes the tokenID, name and URI only in metadata. The URI usually points to somewhere on a centralized server like AWS. Although the data is open, the machine reading of the data causes high friction. The friction is even worse if we try to build something that requires more intelligence. Not to mention the centralized storage is in contradiction to data sovereignty. The numerous tokens will all become meaningless once the server is down.

A more decentralized way to generate the SBTs is that we write the meaning of the SBT in the metadata. We call the SBTs with meanings written in metadata the Semantic SBTs. The open availability of the semantic meaning of SBTs makes the reading of the meaning independent of any servers. And if we want to make it easier for the developers, we can write the meaning in some structure format, or even in some standard format like using Resource Description Framework (RDF), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard.

For example, if the SBT represents someone who is a member of a DAO. When you read the on-chain data, you only know the account is holding an SBT, that’s all. But if we add the semantic meaning in metadata and follow the RDF format, the machine can easily know the account is a member of a DAO. And this is a directed graph link, linking the account and the DAO.

There is no doubt that the wealth and depth of the intelligence data that can be mined from the on-chain behaviors and relationships. The Semantic SBTs’ creating the data resources that are easier to mine. With more and more people creating their data in this format, the data web has increasing returns that benefit the whole society.

Co-created Social Graph and Linked Data Layer

The primitives of Web3 is centred around the wallets holding tokens.

Imagine a world where the on-chain behaviours can be recorded by the Semantic SBTs. You may have many SBTs such like:

·   Attended some events, claimed the Proof of Attendance SBT

·   Completed some course, claimed the Proof of Skillset SBT

·   Joined some program, claimed the Proof of Fellowship SBT

It can also be as simple as you self-certify something about your account, like minting some Proof of Interest SBT describing I love soccer games!

The Semantic SBTs, each describing a statement of self-profile or social relations, can be associated to unfold the social existence and image of the soul.

The more promising point is, with each Semantic SBT describing a short statement of social relations between two accounts, pointing from one to another, the Semantic SBT in fact models the pairwise relation between two objectives and forms a directed graph link. It is theoretically the optimal way to map social relationships in a network of accounts with attributes. With numerous Semantic SBTs held by the ocean of wallets, the decentralized society is really just a gigantic social graph!

The graph theory is so amazing in the scalability and powerful in many aspects of our Web3 life:

·   Recommendation of connections and interests in the Dapps.

·   Detect the intersectional soulbound clusters.

·   Easier to understand large amounts of data, trends, and relationships by business.

·   Identify the coordinated strategic behavior such as sybil attacks.

With Semantic Soulbound Tokens, the building of reputation and trust will be easier with the bottom-up approach of self-issuance and peer attestation. The souls with more proof of something SBTs and more reputable SBTs will be more rewarding in many cases. Protocols that attest SBTs within their communities will find themselves benefit from the co-created reputation and trust of the community.

The social graph fits the connectedness of Semantic SBTs nicely, and it brings the perfect fit of a linked data layer. Consider each account is a data source that holds many Semantic SBTs, each Semantic SBT describes the relationship meaning in standard format and pointing to another data source. The Semantic SBTs’ essentially making Ethereum a Linked Data Web! Query of data can be done by protocols with standard language to get the return in seconds. When souls travel across communities, the data held by them can be easily shared and reused with minimal fictions. The co-created linked data layer is public goods with network effect and increasing return that benefits every corner of the Ethereum Identity Ecosystem.

The beauty of the Semantic SBTs is about to get off the ground and opens a wider door to Ethereum that are collaborative and semantically rich, and not just about finance. Relation, a data value explorer based on Web3 Social Graph, is setting out to create the infrastructure necessary to define and encode social relationships among Semantic SBTs.

Encoding Social Relations

Relation is a decentralized social graph infrastructure that empowers people and communities to co-build reputation and better society in Web3 with Semantic SBTs and linked relationship data. Relation is building an open semantic-SBT minting tool for everyone to mint SBTs and build their brands, while co-creating the decentralized social graph. The open and permissionless model is easy to use, letting individuals and brands start minting SBTs in minutes.

To make self-described profiles actionable, Relation is encoding social relationships through semantic SBTs. Through the addition of directed graph data that is machine readable, Relation Labs’s low friction infrastructure provides an environment where data can be smoothly shared and reused across applications and communities with the W3C standard Resource Description Framework (RDF) to describe relationships within SBT metadata. Beyond providing machine-readable relationships within SBT metadata, this also allows for a more human way of interacting with a decentralized society. Specifically, self-described relationships can let you:

• Make relationships both public and private;

• Revoke or burn certain relationships; and

• Allow relationships to expire.

Though we assumed the SBTs to be publicly visible for simplicity, privacy is still the issue we have deep interest in. Private SBTs are necessary to protect private information and avoid social control. Fortunately, we can deal with over-publicity by storing the hash of the data on-chain and keeping the data off-chain in decentralized storage like Arweave, and control the access by connecting applications to on-chain credentials, like the token gated spaces. ZK proofs is also a powerful way to partially reveal data and compute over SBTs.

In a truly decentralized approach to SBT infrastructure, Relation is ensuring that web3 social is accessible to everyone, reducing the barriers to entry and assisting in the development of more inclusive relationships.

Relation’s Semantic SBT infrastructure can be applied to multiple different use cases, including SoulDrops for both Communities and Souls. SoulDrops are essentially airdrops that are targeted for specific SBT holders. For Souls, this is an opportunity to collect as many SBTs as they can from events, organizations or memberships, to strengthen their digital identity with reputation. For communities, SoulDrops present a “proof-of-things” solution that can be designed to make the airdrop based on what matters, like mitigating one user using multiple attacks (“sybil attacks”). When communities would like to make token airdrops to a certain intersection of souls or believe some SBTs are more trustworthy, the weighted direct graph can help to convene the souls and assign weight to the SBTs to make an effective token airdrop.

Most importantly, the infrastructure being created today for Semantic SBTs is helping reduce the need for intermediaries and creating a clear path toward a decentralized society. As the need for a strong on-chain social existence continues to grow, projects like Relation Labs are creating a social system for creating, maintaining and encoding social relationships that efficiently stored, and bootstrapping the technical layer of an unified and social composable, semantic data layer natively on Ethereum. The collaborative linked data layer generated by Semantic SBTs makes Ethereum a better and equal virtual society for all.

The SBTs proposed by the paper Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul is inspiring. To build something centred around the Ethereum Identity Ecosystem, the way to prove something about your account, or you can call it wallets or souls, is really important. There are some early movers already building in this field, like POAPs to prove the attendance. 

What if we can go one step beyond them by making the proof of something NFTs public goods?

The current NFT standard writes only the tokenID, name and URI in metadata. The URI usually points to somewhere on a centralized server like AWS. Although the data is open, the machine reading of the data causes high friction. The friction is even worse if we try to build something that requires more intelligence. Not to mention the centralized storage is in the contract to data sovereignty. The numerous tokens become meaningless once the server is down.

A more decentralized way to issue the SBTs is that we write the meaning directly in the metadata. The open availability makes the reading of the meaning independent of any servers. And if we want to make it easier for the developers, we can write the meaning in some structure format, or even in some standard format like using RDF. 

For example, if the SBT represents someone who is a member of a DAO. When you read the on-chain data, you only know the account is holding an SBT, that’s all. But if we add the meaning in an RDF format, the machine can easily know the account is a member of a DAO. And this is a directed graph link, linking the account and the DAO. 

Consider each account is a data source that holds many SBTs, each SBT describes the relationship meaning in standard format and pointing to another data source.  Ethereum is now a linked data web!

With more and more people creating their data in the format, the data web has increasing returns to all that can be easily shared and reused across community boundaries. 

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