How fulfilment works
Solvers receive your signed intent and search for a way to satisfy it: existing liquidity, their own inventory, matching against another user's opposite intent, or a combination. They keep any surplus beyond what you specified, which is their incentive.
Because you signed a minimum outcome rather than a path, any route that clears it is acceptable to you.
The genuine improvements
Direct matching between opposing intents avoids pool fees and price impact entirely. Batch settlement can give several users a uniform price. And specifying a minimum outcome makes certain MEV extraction unprofitable, because the surplus a sandwich would capture is bounded by what you accepted.
For some order types these are real gains rather than repackaging.
The trust you take on
Solvers are a smaller set than the open market and may be permissioned. Competition among them determines whether you get a good price or merely an acceptable one, and you cannot observe their search.
The settlement contract becomes a critical dependency, and some designs rely on off-chain infrastructure whose liveness is not guaranteed.
When it fits
Larger orders where price impact dominates, pairs where matching against opposite flow is plausible, and anyone who would rather specify a floor than manage slippage. Small swaps in deep pools gain little.
FBT Swap uses an intent-style flow for supported routes: you set the outcome you will accept, the quote and the 0.70% platform fee are shown before signing, and nothing executes without your signature.