Avail’s Nexus: Aiming to Be the Backbone of Web3 Execution

The Avail Nexus mainnet launched this week, claiming to fundamentally change the way assets are transferred between blockchains. Unlike other bridging tools, Nexus aims to streamline multichain execution, making it as easy as pressing a button and addressing years of cumbersome crypto user experience and operational challenges.

Key Takeaways

Seamless User Experience: Nexus aims to simplify how users interact with various blockchains, eliminating the need for multiple steps and processes.
Intent-Based Model: Instead of users having to figure out how to achieve their goals, Nexus allows them to specify their end goals or "intents."
Unified Balances: Users will see a single balance regardless of where their assets are held, enhancing the overall experience.
Enhanced Security: Funds will be locked in on-chain vault contracts, ensuring safe transactions, with automatic reversals if something goes wrong.
Modular Approach: Nexus is designed to be easily integrated into existing decentralized applications without needing changes at the blockchain protocol level.

Avail’s Nexus wants to be Web3’s execution spine, not just another bridge

Improving the Crosschain Experience

Nexus seeks to address a common issue in Web3: why users with on-chain assets still face difficulties. Users often must bridge tokens, swap for gas, and navigate multiple applications just to utilize their funds.

Prabal Banerjee, Avail's co-founder, explained to Cointelegraph, “Users should not be overwhelmed by different chains and infrastructure. The user experience should prioritize simplicity, allowing for unified balances and one-click transactions. However, essential security indicators must remain visible and understandable, as security and choice are crucial.”

He believes the challenge is not about having too few options but rather about lacking an effective coordination layer that is integrated within applications to manage multichain interactions smoothly. Currently, bridges and decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregators attempt to guide users across chains, but they still involve a convoluted series of transactions, with diminished guarantees if one part of the process fails.

Banerjee argues this existing model has its limitations—liquidity is scattered, user experience is fragile, and users often feel like they need to be technical experts instead of enjoying the applications.

Nexus intends to revolutionize this process. Users can submit signed "intents," which are their end goals along with any constraints, and rely on a solver network to determine how to achieve those goals by sourcing liquidity across different chains. Essentially, users express what they want to do without having to figure out how to do it.

Web3
Avail Nexus mainnet is live across 13 ecosystems

Simplified Transactions Through Unified Balances

The interface allows users to view a single balance and transact directly from their app, regardless of where their assets are stored. Nexus automates complex elements like gas fees, approvals, routing, and cross-chain accounting, so users can focus on interacting with the applications rather than the underlying chains.

The emphasis is on user retention rather than just minimizing costs. Banerjee refers to the current scenario as “a fragmented experience where users must understand the different chains of the applications they use.” Nexus aims to interconnect decentralized applications (DApps) to create environments where users can operate without switching contexts, showing value as a single number within the app.

Trust and Risk Management in the Intent Model

This innovative model shifts the trust reliance from bridges to solvers. With intents, new challenges arise regarding miner extractable value (MEV) and routing, making solvers and flows essential elements of the infrastructure. To mitigate risks, funds are secured in on-chain vault contracts and only released once solvers meet the agreed-upon conditions within a specific time frame. If a route fails, it will automatically revert to restore the user's funds.

Positioning Within the Modular Architecture

Many modular designs that incorporate shared sequencers require fundamental changes at the blockchain protocol level, making them difficult to implement in established production chains.

Banerjee stated, “Numerous shared sequencer efforts require modifications at the chain level, which are always complicated, particularly with large production chains. Thus, their adoption has been slower than expected.”

Avail’s strategy is strictly at the application layer, providing software development kits (SDKs), APIs, and modular components that can be integrated into existing DApps and rollups without changing the core consensus or protocol of the blockchain. This approach is fundamentally supported by Avail’s capabilities in data availability verification.

In Banerjee’s perspective, while most competitors tackle cross-chain user experience at coordination or chain levels, Nexus simplifies the user journey into a single flow: one balance, one interface, and one complete operational environment.

Early positive responses have come from leaders within other modular ecosystems. Monad’s mainnet launch recognized Nexus, indicating that some layer one (L1) chains view this type of execution-layer abstraction as a key component of infrastructure, rather than a supplementary integration.

The Strategic Vision Ahead

Should Nexus be successful, users may stop worrying about which blockchain powers their applications, transferring power to a few coordinating layers that handle intents, manage solver order flow, and direct liquidity.

For Avail, the goal is clear: to create a multichain internet that functions as a unified user-focused network operating seamlessly beneath the surface, without inadvertently becoming a new intermediary in the process.