Cross-chain bridges are proactively seeking change, with LI.FI leveraging its intent architecture to become the liquidity hub for TradFi institutions
- Key Insight: The cross-chain bridge protocol LI.FI is proactively evolving by launching an intent execution architecture, LI.FI Intents, upgrading itself from a pure liquidity protocol to an underlying execution layer serving enterprise users. It focuses on stablecoin payments, RWA assets, and compliant on-chain liquidity to address the industry-wide liquidity crunch and market downturn.
- Key Elements:
- Over the past 30 days, the aggregate trading volume of cross-chain bridges amounted to approximately $1.92 billion. Monthly volume has declined by about 34% from its peak ($2.974 billion), indicating a market liquidity crunch.
- LI.FI has completed $52 million in funding (led by Multicoin and CoinFund), providing capital support to explore new business avenues, expanding into yield opportunities and lending markets.
- The new product, LI.FI Earn, launched in April, enables enterprises to access over 20 vault protocols and execute cross-chain operations through a single interface.
- The core of LI.FI Intents is enabling precise cross-chain swaps of stablecoins like USDC and USDT via a solver network, without requiring users to manage gas fees or handle underlying steps.
- In terms of compliance, the architecture's network consists of legitimate entities. Orders require review and approval, and interacting wallets are subject to OFAC screening to ensure compliant authorization.
- The ecosystem has extensive coverage, including the EVM ecosystem, Solana, and the Tron network, reducing dependence on and security risks from any single chain.
Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010 )
When TradFi becomes a must for the crypto industry, no project can afford to stand on the sidelines. However, some choose to start with asset types, while others set their sights on the companies and institutions behind those assets.
Last month, the cross-chain bridge protocol LI.FI officially announced the launch of its intent-based execution architecture, LI.FI Intents. This product will serve as the underlying execution layer providing stablecoin payments, RWA, and compliant on-chain liquidity, catering to fintech companies, neobanks, wallets, and regulated financial institutions.
As stablecoin payments, RWA assets, and compliant assets increasingly converge with the on-chain ecosystem, Li.Fi is no longer content to be merely a "liquidity transmission protocol." Instead, it is actively seeking breakthroughs and role upgrades at the levels of new assets, new customers, and new operating systems.
When Industry Liquidity Tightens, Cross-Chain Bridge Protocols Adapt Proactively
According to DefiLlama data, the aggregate trading volume of cross-chain bridges over the past 30 days was approximately $1.92 billion, a decline of about 1.81% from the previous week. Since reaching a high of $2.974 billion in trading volume last October, monthly cross-chain bridge volume has been slowly declining. In May, volume fell to around $1.9 billion, a drop of nearly 34% from the peak.
On the other side, the overall crypto market is in a volatile downward trend, with BTC spot trading volume down 81% from last year's highs; on-chain liquidity has consequently tightened further.
Facing this situation, Li.Fi, as a cross-chain bridge protocol, has not sat idle like most crypto projects. Instead, it is actively exploring new businesses and seeking new application scenarios and service targets to ensure its long-term development.
Last December, LI.FI announced the completion of a $29 million funding round led by Multicoin and CoinFund, bringing its total funding to $52 million. At that time, the project stated it planned to use the latest funds to expand its business into different trading areas, including perpetual futures, yield opportunities, prediction markets, and lending markets.
Ample funding has given Li.Fi sufficient confidence to explore and build new products while maintaining its core business.
In April this year, LI.FI announced the launch of a new product, LI.FI Earn, offering on-chain yield features for enterprises with digital asset strategies. It supports strategies integrating over 20 vault protocols through a single integration, with built-in cross-chain execution capabilities across more than 60 chains.
In May, the intent-based execution architecture LI.FI Intents was released, marking Li.Fi's official entry into enterprise services, empowering B-end clients with underlying operational capabilities for stablecoin payments, RWA assets, and compliant liquidity.
At a time when TradFi assets and crypto assets are converging, lowering the barrier to entry for users from the operational execution layer, improving liquidity efficiency, and unlocking channels for tokenized asset exchange represent the new direction for Li.Fi's upgrade and iteration. Compared to cross-chain protocols limited to the crypto market, providing financial services to global fintech companies, neobanks, wallets, and regulated financial institutions is undoubtedly a higher-ceiling cash cow business.
In terms of user experience, Li.Fi Intents offers users a simpler execution solution that is ready to use. It is reported that it primarily provides market-maker-level execution through a solver network, enabling precise cross-chain swaps between stablecoins like USDC and USDT without requiring users to manage Gas tokens or handle complex underlying blockchain steps. Additionally, this architecture allows applications to integrate multiple tokenized asset issuers through a unified interface.
From a barrier-to-entry standpoint, LI.FI Intents is currently live on applications and wallets like Jumper and Rabby. Moreover, with LI.FI Intents, enterprise users do not need to interact with any wallet, significantly lowering the understanding threshold for transfers, payments, and asset transfers, while reducing many cumbersome operational steps.
From a compliance perspective, the network built by LI.FI Intents consists of verified legitimate entities. Enterprises can review and approve orders one by one before the transaction processing system handles them, precisely selecting their trusted transaction processing system to ensure orders flow within a compliant approval framework. All wallets interacting with this system will be screened by the U.S. OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department), effectively providing a final layer of "compliance insurance."
From an ecosystem standpoint, LI.FI Intents covers major blockchain networks, including the EVM ecosystem, Solana network, and Tron network, ensuring a degree of adaptability in terms of ease of use and broad coverage, thereby avoiding potential security risks or single points of failure that can arise from heavy reliance on a single blockchain network.
Conclusion: Efficient Automated Services Behind Intent Execution
If the tokenization of US stocks and RWA assets solves the issues of updating asset types and lowering the barrier to entry for traditional finance, then Li.Fi Intents targets how to bring stablecoin payments, RWA assets, and compliant on-chain liquidity into enterprise ecosystems better and faster, improving their operational efficiency and capital utilization.
More importantly, the Li.Fi Intents system is designed to serve intent execution. Like destination navigation in smart driving, enterprise users only need to set their goals, and the intermediate execution steps are all outsourced and handled by the system.
In today's era of extremely diverse asset types, the value of efficient operations will be further amplified, and Li.Fi has already taken the most crucial step.
