How fast "intent" transfers work

A classic bridge waits until it is sure your deposit is final, then pays you. On some chains that is quick. On others it is not. Withdrawing from Arbitrum or Optimism to Ethereum through the official bridge takes about seven days.

Intent bridges get around this by changing who waits. You do not have to. A professional does it for you, for a small fee.

An intent is a simple order: "I give 1,000 USDC on Arbitrum, I want at least 998 USDC on Base." You do not pick the route. You sign the order and lock your funds in the bridge contract.

It is like ordering a taxi through an app. You say where you want to go and accept a price. The driver decides which streets to take.

Because you set a minimum, you know the worst case before you sign. If nobody can deliver at least that amount, the order is not filled and you get your funds back.

A solver is a trader or company with money ready on many chains. When it sees your order, it sends you the coins on the destination chain right away from its own balance. You often get paid in seconds.

Then, once your deposit on the source chain is confirmed, the protocol repays the solver from your locked funds. The solver keeps the difference as its fee.

Across calls these payers relayers. It repays them from a pool on Ethereum and uses the UMA oracle to check that repayments are correct. Anyone can challenge a wrong claim during a set window. deBridge, Relay and NEAR Intents follow the same basic idea with their own checks.

The solver takes most of the risk. It pays first and gets repaid later. Solvers protect themselves by waiting for enough confirmations before they fill, and by pricing that risk into the fee.

From your side, the important part is simple. If something goes wrong on the source chain, it is the solver who is out of pocket, not you.

Your funds sit in the bridge contract only for a short time. If no solver fills your order before it expires, the contract refunds you. That short window also means less time for something to go wrong compared with holding a wrapped token for months.

Solvers only fill orders they can cover. A very large transfer, or one to a less popular chain, may get fewer offers or none at all. In that case you wait for the refund and try a smaller amount or another route.

Price is set by competition between solvers. On busy routes like Ethereum to Base or Arbitrum this keeps fees low. On quiet routes the spread can be wider.

Most intent bridges focus on Ethereum-style networks and Solana. Across, for example, has no native Bitcoin support. For BTC, NEAR Intents and Garden use solvers too, but you still wait for Bitcoin confirmations before the order is filled.

Compare the amount you will receive, not the fee label. Check the minimum you will accept if the app shows it. Send a small test first on a route you have not used.

If a transfer does not arrive within the time shown, look up your deposit on the source chain explorer and check the bridge's status page. Expired orders are refunded automatically, though it can take a little while.