Intentions 2025: A Case Study in Building Crosschain NFT Experiences

The Intentions 2025 NFT campaign introduced a new approach to NFT minting by embedding Across’ crosschain actions, allowing users to mint on Base while paying gas fees with assets from any chain. This web2-like checkout experience eliminated manual bridging, improved user accessibility, and led to 2,793 NFTs minted by 1,565 unique holders. The campaign highlights the potential of invisible bridging to enhance web3 experiences across NFTs, gaming, and DeFi.

NFT minting experiences have changed forever.

The success of our recent Intentions 2025 NFT campaign showcased how Across can be used to build seamless minting experiences that feel like web2 interactions. With Across embedded directly into the minting process, users were able to mint NFTs on Base while paying for gas with assets from any chain—eliminating the need for manual bridging.

In this case study, we’ll explore how Across can be used to enable enhanced NFT minting experiences by embedding crosschain actions.

To kick off 2025 with purpose, Across partnered with generative artist Jimena Buena Vida and Props Labs for the Intentions 2025 campaign. This collaboration allowed users to mint their personal intentions for the year as unique generative artworks. The NFT collection launched on Base, but the minting process offered full crosschain support to ensure an inclusive, user-friendly experience.

Jimena’s vision combined emotional storytelling with geometric art to bring each minted intention to life. These NFTs became daily reminders of purposeful action, allowing participants to carry their intentions into the new year with clarity and creativity.

NFT minting often highlights one of the biggest pain points in web3: crosschain friction. Users frequently face challenges like chain-specific asset requirements and intricate bridging workflows, leading to high abandonment rates and frustration.

For example, if a user were trying to mint an NFT on Arbitrum but didn’t have enough gas to execute the transaction, they would have to bridge more ETH to Arbitrum in order to make it happen. This introduces many more steps and potential points of failure, making the process tedious, frustrating, and risky.

For a more in-depth perspective, traditional NFT minting often suffers from:

For Intentions 2025, the goal was to create a web2-like checkout experience where users could mint NFTs effortlessly without worrying about underlying chain operations. We wanted to make bridging invisible for users.

To accomplish our goal, we identified the major friction point to address was gas availability—we wanted to make sure users could pay the gas fees from multiple chains. This layer of bridge abstraction would enhance the user experience and increase minting accessibility to larger audiences. Across’ crosschain protocol was the perfect candidate.

Props Labs used Across' embedded crosschain actions to create a web2-like checkout experience where users could mint NFTs on Base while paying with assets from any supported chain. Across provided the tools to make this happen in its Developer Toolkit, including the App SDK and API:

Additionally, deposits are seamlessly initiated via smart contracts. By integrating Across’ generic multicall handler contract, bridging is abstracted away from the user experience. NFT minting is as simple as choosing your intention and confirming the transaction, with gas fees deducted from assets on any chain.

Here’s how we structured the implementations:

The code defines a structured sequence of two actions for when funds reach the destination chain. The first action targets BASE_ETH with a generated unwrap call, while the second targets the INTENTIONS contract with mint call data including user address, metadata, and signature. Both actions include update functions for amount adjustments, and the message specifies a fallback recipient address for safety.

2. Quote retrieval using the Across API

The getQuote function makes a client request with four parameters: an input amount (converted to string), a route object, a MulticallHandler contract address as the recipient, and the previously crafted cross-chain message. This returns a quote response through the Across clients.

3. Deposit initiation with smart contract interaction

The executeQuote function takes a quote object and optional callback, initializes the Across client and wallet connection, then executes the quote with progress tracking. It monitors three specific stages (approve, deposit, and fill), updating transaction status and details for each stage including transaction hashes, block numbers, and gas usage when available.

Check out the full code here and here.

The Intentions 2025 campaign achieved significant success, with the results demonstrating the effectiveness of Across’ solution. 

Here are the stats:

Everyone loved the minting experience, and the excitement quickly spread across Crypto Twitter like wildfire.

The user experience has been significantly enhanced by making bridging invisible, allowing users to enjoy near-instant transaction execution. Here’s the breakdown:

The success of the Intentions 2025 campaign demonstrates the potential for embedded crosschain actions beyond simple bridging. Future applications could include:

The future of web3 is crosschain, and with Across' embedded actions, we're making that future invisible to end users. With embedded crosschain actions, minting UX can become as easy as web2 checkout processes.

Ready to build your own seamless crosschain experience? Here's how to get started:

Remember, the Intentions 2025 campaign’s success can easily be replicated. Now it’s your turn.