Author: TechFlow
The blockchain market is extremely efficiency-driven:
Public chains revolve around TPS, aiming to bring faster transaction speeds; LST/LRT nesting, striving to achieve higher capital efficiency; the MEME super cycle sees the emergence of new and novel angles every day, with many projects going from blooming to extinction in just 1 day.
But this efficiency does not seem to be reflected in blockchain product development:
If you want to develop a product based on a certain blockchain, you must first undergo intensive learning of that chain, understanding its consensus mechanism, account model, Gas design, development language, testing tools, and other important design elements;
If you want to further improve your product functionality, such as introducing location and payment functions for a hotel booking product, which is commonplace in Web2, you can directly choose to integrate mature products like Google Maps and Alipay, but in the blockchain world, in most cases you need to build everything from scratch;
If you want to reach more ecosystem users, you need to support more chains, but each chain has its own rules, and the continuously decreasing chain launch threshold has brought more chains to the industry, you must be like a conquering general, breaking through the strongholds of each blockchain ecosystem one by one, to achieve greater integration...
Regardless of each step, it seriously slows down the development efficiency and directly affects the product functionality presentation and user experience, because developers always need to spend 90% of their energy to realize the most basic functions, and cannot focus on innovation.
Who will help the blockchain developers trapped in the repetitive wheel-making?
Committed to abstracting on-chain smart contract interactions and building blockchain development shortcuts through Shortcuts, Enso is gaining more attention due to its outstanding performance in lowering the development threshold for developers and realizing intent-based interactions: according to official data, Enso currently supports 75+ projects and has achieved over $16 billion in on-chain settlement.
In addition, Enso has completed a cumulative $9.2 million in financing, receiving the favor of well-known institutions including Polychain Capital, Multicoin Capital, Cyberfund, Spartan, TheLAO, Ideo Ventures, Hypersphere, and Selini capital, and attracting more than 60 industry leaders as angel investors.
Behind the choices of developers and institutions, how does Enso solve the problems of blockchain development complexity, repetition, low efficiency, and high cost?
From the initial API product, to the Enso Shortcut Engine, and the upcoming decentralized network Enso Network based on Cosmos that allows everyone to participate and benefit, let's explore Enso's specific solution of using Shortcuts to achieve chain abstraction and intent, driving large-scale adoption of blockchain.
Completing 7 months of development work in 1.5 days, a direct experience of Enso's efficiency
Based on Enso's huge advantage in eliminating the complexity of accessing and executing across multiple protocols, this amazing work efficiency comparison comes from the real development experience of Enso's partner:
Plug is an intent-driven on-chain activity automation platform, aiming to build the Web3 version of Zapier, allowing users to manage, write, schedule, and execute all on-chain activities on its platform.
Before collaborating with Enso, OnPlug spent seven months on protocol integration development, and the tedious and repetitive integration work consumed a lot of energy; after collaborating with Enso, OnPlug rebuilt the entire integration layer and completed the work of the past 7 months in just 1.5 days, the leap in development efficiency allowed OnPlug to focus more on the automation of Web3 activities, bringing great convenience to users.
In addition to improving development efficiency, Enso is also very adept at handling complex on-chain DeFi executions. The Berachain Boyco pre-deposit market has sparked widespread community participation, and as the supporter behind Berachain Boyco, Enso has also received high praise:
We know that the demands in the Boyco market, from single-token deposits to multi-token strategies, are highly complex. If you manually integrate protocols, create custom code for each market-specific requirement, and conduct extensive testing and auditing, it is undoubtedly inefficient and high-cost.
Therefore, Berachain collaborated with Enso to achieve rapid integration with all major DeFi protocols, ensuring the compatibility of the entire ecosystem, and users in the Boyco application can complete asset interactions with multiple protocols through a single transaction, without the need to switch and jump between multiple platforms or search for the best way to obtain the required assets, providing a more seamless participation experience and laying a good foundation for the launch of the Berachain mainnet.
As of the writing of this article, with the support of Enso Shortcuts, the Boyco TVL has exceeded $3.1 billion.
In addition, the automated cryptocurrency trading market Glider also provides users with powerful portfolio automation functions through Enso; Enso has launched on ZKsync, aiming to help developers build faster and more efficiently; the multi-chain liquidity re-staking protocol Bedrock has established a partnership with Enso, bringing users the one-click exchange and deposit of assets in the uniBTC Berachain vault.
Beyond the DeFi scenario, the combination of Enso and AI is also noteworthy:
In the current context of the AI Agent craze and the rise of the DeFAI narrative, DeFi, as the core pillar of the crypto world, aims to use AI to simplify the complex DeFi operation threshold, and DeFAI is widely seen as promising.
As AI Agents evolve towards greater intelligence, Enso is committed to helping AI Agents overcome the complexity of interacting with multiple protocols, bundled transactions, and management operations, endowing them with stronger execution capabilities:
BrianknowsAI, through integration with Enso, can focus more on developing their intent recognition engine without worrying about integrating with multiple blockchain protocols;
Velvet Unicorn, as an autonomous hedge fund management company, has quickly built advanced features such as neural network routing and multi-step yield strategies through collaboration with Enso;
Hey anon, as a DeFi-focused AI Agent, has realized interactions with 180+ on-chain protocols through Enso...
The list goes on.
It is reported that Enso has currently integrated 180+ protocols, with 60+ Apps using Enso to leverage these integrations, and the Enso ecosystem cooperation landscape is still rapidly expanding.
Behind the series of successful cases, many people are curious:
As the secret weapon that simplifies the development process, improves development efficiency, and brings a seamless experience for multiple projects, how does Enso achieve all this?
From API to Intent Engine to Shortcuts, exploring Enso's product evolution
As the saying goes, practice leads to true knowledge.
Enso did not initially determine the project development strategy centered on Shortcuts. After early product trials and adjustments, as well as the team's long-term observation of the crypto market demand, Enso's specific solution to improve blockchain development efficiency gradually became clear.
Enso started with DeFi, previously launching a social trading platform where anyone could create social strategies and monetize their investments in DeFi and ERC20 tokens. But in the process of integrating more DeFi protocols, Enso spent a lot of time and paid over $500,000 in high audit costs to integrate 15 DeFi protocols.
After this experience, Enso found that the market needs services that can solve the development dilemma of DeFi products, rather than specific DeFi products. Therefore, the team decided to rethink the product design, reconstruct the underlying logic of the product, and subsequently launched a series of APIs, including Route API, Bundle API, Metadata API, etc., aiming to provide tools for executing and obtaining all relevant metadata of DeFi protocols, covering multiple key points such as executing multiple transactions in a single atomic transaction, bundling multiple DeFi operations to create custom workflows, obtaining the best route based on the given expected path, and providing all metadata related to DeFi protocols. Developers only need to call the API to quickly embed on-chain operations into their products, providing efficiency improvements for developers to build the next generation of DeFi.
After the API was hugely successful, Enso delved deeper into lowering the development threshold: how to further help developers easily build products that can interact with any smart contract on any blockchain framework?
Based on this, in June 2024, the Enso Intent Engine was officially launched.
As a fully decentralized shared network state, the Enso Intent Engine aims to simplify smart contract interactions on the blockchain and support the creation of tradable data across various blockchain frameworks, which is achieved through a Map of all smart contract interactions in the blockchain framework.
In simple terms, if we compare the blockchain industry to the Earth, each blockchain is like a country, and the applications in each blockchain are like the cities in each country, with various facilities such as schools, shopping malls, and parks, and operations such as lending, borrowing, exchanging, transferring, approving, and depositing.
In the past, there was no interaction between countries, that is, data was not shared between blockchains, and integrating a chain or a smart contract required learning and adapting to the rules of that country and city.
Enso aims to draw a global Map, recording the rules of all countries and cities (i.e., all blockchains and smart contracts), and presenting them in the form of standardized data formats, transaction formats, and execution formats, so that developers can easily integrate through the standardized layer built by Enso.
Therefore, in Enso, developers only need to express their intent, and the complex blockchain interactions can be handled automatically, and the intent request does not have to be specific to a single use case, it can include various types of smart contract interactions across multiple blockchain frameworks.
For example, in this shared Map, just as we can collect all parks under the "Park" label on this global map, we can collect data and analyze all lending protocols through the "Lend" operation type.
Based on the concept of the shared Map of the Enso Intent Engine, by combining different operation types as needed, a series of Shortcuts that can significantly improve the efficiency of blockchain development can be created, transforming complex on-chain operations into simple, verified, and reusable building blocks.
In simple terms, the standardized operation types are like Lego bricks, and developers can assemble the bricks into the shapes they want, just like Lego bricks can be assembled into pre-built components such as doors, windows, and walls, and you can easily assemble them into schools, hospitals, or shopping malls.
Similarly, developers can combine different operation types to form DeFi routing, asset management, automated execution, and various other Shortcuts, and integrate these Shortcuts into the functionality implementation of various products.
Doesn't this sound very simple and efficient?
Currently, Enso has the following Shortcuts:
Token swapping and DeFi routing
Asset management
Financial tools and automation
DeFi protocol integration
Smart contract interaction
Complex transaction bundling
At the same time, more Shortcuts are in the works. Projects including Berachain, ZKsync, and Bedrock have greatly reduced the time and cost required for integration and maintenance through Enso, and have already achieved over $16 billion in on-chain settlement, bringing more liquidity integration, innovative functionality, and high-quality user experiences to the blockchain ecosystem.
Behind the exquisite product design is a team of elite with 10 years of experience in the blockchain field.
As the CEO and co-founder of Enso, Connor Howe has been working full-time in the blockchain industry since 2016 and published one of the earliest Ethereum research papers in the UK. Before founding Enso, Connor worked at the Swiss fully licensed digital asset bank Sygnum and established the blockchain department, responsible for developing fully collateralized stablecoins, tokenization suites, multi-signature, and managing over $5 billion in assets using original HSM.
Another co-founder, Peter Phillips, is also the CTO of Enso, and has also been working full-time in the blockchain industry since 2016. Before joining Enso, Peter worked at a blockchain development agency, with clients including DuckDuckGo and Mozilla, and previously developed Aragon through Autark, with extensive experience in blockchain development.
Milos Costantini is a core developer and co-founder of Enso. Before joining Enso, Milos built the validator infrastructure for Swisscom blockchain, the largest telecom company in Switzerland, and helped establish their blockchain department, making outstanding contributions to the construction of Enso's network architecture.
It is worth mentioning that many community members have already noticed that the Enso Intent Engine is currently provided in a centralized manner, but Enso's core vision is decentralization, aiming to build an organic ecosystem where everyone can participate and contribute, and everyone can benefit.
With the upcoming Enso Network, the last piece of the decentralization puzzle will be in place, and Enso's decentralized network vision is accelerating.
Next Stop: Enso Network - Towards Full Decentralization
As an independent L1 Tendermint blockchain, the Enso Network is driven by network participants, providing efficient execution and extensive integration. We know that "achieving intent through Shortcuts" is the core concept of Enso, and the realization of intent includes three key elements:
Intent expression: Users specify the desired results in the application.
Intent execution: Solvers compete in auctions to determine the optimal solution for executing the user's intent.
Intent settlement: Solvers earn rewards by providing the optimal solution.
The Enso Network introduces four key roles to achieve the logical closed loop of its decentralized network.
Consumers are the demand initiators, who need to state their expected results and pay fees to submit requests to the Enso network.
Action providers are the developers who publish smart contract abstractions on-chain, and the network will reward the developers who become Action providers based on the proportion of their smart contract abstractions used in the generated solutions.
Graphers are the individuals who provide solutions based on the Consumers' requests. Whenever a new request arises, Graphers will traverse all the abstractions contributed in the Enso network and combine them in the optimal order to generate executable bytecode. As the proposer of the optimal solution, Graphers will receive rewards.
Finally, Validators are the core of maintaining the network's secure operation, responsible for listening to and broadcasting valid requests from Consumers, verifying the smart contract abstractions contributed by Action providers (only verified smart contract abstractions can be used by Graphers to generate solutions), and determining the optimal solution from the Graphers and feeding it back to the Consumers for execution.
We know that the design of the economic model plays a crucial role in the stable and positive operation of the ecosystem, and the Enso network uses the native token $ENSO to incentivize network participants and constrain malicious behavior.
As a key component of the Enso ecosystem, $ENSO has a total supply of 100 million and the following key functions:
Gas: Pay the fees required to initiate requests and modify states on the Enso network;
Governance: Promote protocol upgrades through token voting;
Staking: Action providers, Graphers, and Validators need to stake a certain amount of tokens to participate in the network contribution, and their staked $ENSO will be forfeited if they are found to be acting inappropriately, while token holders can also delegate their stakes to network participants to further maintain network security.
Based on this, the Enso ecosystem's virtuous cycle of universal participation, universal contribution, and universal benefit is clearly visible.
Conclusion
Of course, although the Enso API has already become quite mature and has been widely integrated into dozens of well-known projects, the development of the Enso Network is still in a relatively early stage.
According to its whitepaper, the launch of the Enso Network will be divided into two phases:
In the first phase, the centralized Enso service will coexist with the decentralized network, and developers who are interested in becoming Action providers can contribute to the centralized service hosted by Enso, while independent Validators will simulate the bytecode solution.
In the second phase, the Enso Network will gradually evolve into a fully sustainable ecosystem, and at the same time, the network will provide a completely permissionless environment for Action providers, Graphers, and other key network contributors. In addition, the Enso Network will expand from supporting only the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) and the Move Virtual Machine (MVM) framework, further enhancing the developer experience of the multi-chain ecosystem.
According to the official roadmap information, the Enso Network is currently in the testnet stage and is expected to officially debut in 2025.
It is particularly noteworthy that although Enso has achieved outstanding results in the application of DeFi, AI, and other fields in the past, fundamentally speaking, for those applications that wish to interact with smart contracts on any blockchain, they can all find the optimal solution through the Enso Network.
In other words, the Enso network has the ability to support any type of project. It is not only limited to improving the development efficiency and service quality of DeFi and other applications, but also has the potential to become the universal gateway for all smart contract interactions on all blockchains. In the current trend of multi-chain development, Enso will be an effective way for developers to build truly scalable killer applications.
In the context of the rapid increase in the number of public chains, the deepening complexity of DeFi interactions, and the exponential growth of cross-chain demands, Enso's narrative of improving development efficiency and becoming the universal gateway for all smart contract interactions on the chain is undoubtedly attractive. Its evolution from API to Intent Engine to Enso Network also shows the project's attitude of continuous improvement and deep cultivation.
With the upcoming mainnet launch and the gradual implementation of various roadmaps, Enso may become one of the key driving forces in the path to achieving large-scale adoption of blockchain technology.
Enso Website: https://www.enso.build/
Enso X/Twitter: https://x.com/EnsoBuild
