General Overview
What Minotaur is, what intents are, who it's for, and how the network fits together.
Everything you need to know about Minotaur — the platform, the people running it, and the protocol vocabulary.
What is Minotaur?
Minotaur is a distributed intent execution platform powered by Bittensor Subnet 112. Developers deploy App Intents — smart contracts with JavaScript scoring — and users submit orders to the Intent OrderBook. The network’s Solving Engine finds optimal execution plans, validators simulate and score them, reach consensus, and the Relayer executes on-chain. It supports multiple chains including Ethereum and Base.
Is Minotaur live on mainnet?
Yes. Minotaur is in Alpha on mainnet — real chains, real funds. The DexAggregatorApp is live on Base; Bittensor EVM and Ethereum follow within Phase 4. App deployment is currently restricted to the Minotaur team; permissionless App deployment opens in Phase 6 (Jun 23, 2026).
What chains does Minotaur support?
At Alpha launch, DexAggregatorApp is live on Base (chain 8453) for same-chain swaps. Bittensor EVM (chain 964) and Ethereum mainnet ship within Phase 4. Cross-chain settlement ships in Phase 5 (Jun 9, 2026) via bridge adapters.
What is an Intent?
An intent can be anything from a simple swap to a complex protocol. The important thing to understand is that an intent is requesting an outcome and doesn’t care about the execution path.
What is an Intent Engine?
An Intent Engine is a system that is responsible for processing intents and finding the best execution path for them. Minotaur leverages a network of Miners and Validators that monitor pending intents, compute execution paths, validate and simulate the paths, and agree on proper execution.
What is an App Intent?
An App Intent is the generic expression of intents as smart contract code. In the context of Minotaur, an App is made of an on-chain smart contract and a private JavaScript smart contract that lives in the JsExecutionEngine run by our validators.
The App developer defines the intent for their app as invariants of the smart contract and a scoring function. Miners must compete for the best score / timing of execution to solve the intent. Validators run off-chain scoring and filtering logic in the JsExecutionEngine to compare execution plans.
What is a Miner?
A Miner competes by writing Solving Engine code — the algorithm that generates execution plans for all App Intents. The best solver (the champion) earns 100% of subnet emissions. Miners submit code to validators, where it’s screened, benchmarked, and the highest-scoring solver is adopted network-wide.
What is a Validator?
A Validator runs the champion Solving Engine to process orders from the Intent OrderBook. Validators simulate plans on Anvil forks, score them using both JavaScript and on-chain scoring, and reach N-of-M consensus before the Relayer executes on-chain. The highest-stake validator serves as leader.
How do agents talk to Minotaur?
Agents (Claude, Cursor, your own) connect over a 35-tool MCP server that exposes the full intent lifecycle — app discovery, intent construction, quote, sign, submit, and order tracking. Agents declare outcomes in plain language; the MCP server constructs and signs the EIP-712 intent on the user’s behalf. See the main repo for the MCP surface reference.
What is the JsExecutionEngine?
The JsExecutionEngine is a sandboxed Node.js environment run by validators. It executes the JavaScript scoring code for each App Intent, providing off-chain scoring that complements on-chain contract verification.
What is a JavaScript smart contract?
A JavaScript smart contract, or JSC, is a novel tool that allows App developers to spread the smart contract logic between Solidity and obfuscated JavaScript. Such contracts can query live prices, read chain state, analyze transactions, and most importantly precisely score execution plans for the App Intent to catch unwanted behaviour before it is processed on-chain.
What kind of App Intents is Minotaur shipping?
Minotaur ships with DexAggregatorApp as the primary App Intent — token swaps routed across Uniswap V3 + Aerodrome Slipstream on Base today, with more venues / chains added as the reference solver expands. The platform supports any custom App Intent — developers can deploy their own scoring logic and smart contracts for strategies like vault management, limit orders, DCA, and more.
Who is Minotaur for?
We optimize our products for agentic users and developers as we recognize that the majority of future trading and smart contract logic will be driven by AI agents. Humans are still welcome and you can use our products manually. If however you choose to let your favourite AI trade for you or develop financial products, it will probably use Minotaur’s technology behind the scenes.
So are you a DEX aggregator?
Yes in the sense that we leverage cross-chain liquidity and we do process swaps. However from our point of view, exchanging financial assets should be a feature available for all dApps. App Intents bring market-optimized monitoring and execution to the next level. Smart contracts can leverage our swapping logic and other intents processing.