1inch

1inch is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator and DeFi infrastructure platform. Rather than routing swaps through a single exchange, it scans liquidity across more than 300 sources simultaneously—AMM pools, order books, and lending markets—and splits or routes orders to secure the best net price after fees, slippage, and gas. Since launching its Solana integration in April 2025, the platform supports 13 or more blockchain networks from a single interface.

The Problem It Solves

On-chain trading is fragmented. Liquidity for any given token pair is spread across dozens of protocols, and trading on a single venue means accepting whatever price and depth that venue happens to offer. Without aggregation, users leave money on the table through missed price improvement, unnecessary slippage, and front-running by MEV bots. 1inch addresses all three: its routing engine finds cheaper execution paths, its Fusion protocol gives users MEV protection by design, and its cross-chain product (Fusion+) eliminates the need to bridge assets manually before swapping.

How It Works

Pathfinder is the core routing algorithm. When a user submits a swap, Pathfinder queries the full depth of supported liquidity sources in real time and computes the optimal split—sometimes routing part of an order through Uniswap, part through Curve, and part through an on-chain order book—to minimize total cost. On Solana it queries native AMMs and liquidity programs, then synthesizes a single transaction the user signs once.

Fusion is the intent-based execution layer that sits above Pathfinder. Instead of submitting a transaction directly, the user signs an off-chain intent specifying the tokens and a minimum acceptable output. A network of professional market makers called resolvers then competes to fill that order via a Dutch auction: the order starts at a favorable rate and ticks down until a resolver decides the spread is worth capturing. The user pays no gas and cannot be front-run, because the transaction is not broadcast to the public mempool until a resolver commits to a fill.

Fusion+ extends the same intent model across chains. A user can sign one intent to swap USDC on Ethereum for SOL on Solana; a resolver handles both legs and delivers the destination tokens without the user needing to touch a bridge UI. The protocol uses hash-time-locked contracts to ensure atomicity: if the resolver does not deliver the destination-chain tokens, the source-chain tokens are returned.

Key Products

Swap is the flagship product available directly at 1inch.com or through the API. It supports spot swaps, limit orders, and DCA orders across all supported chains.

1inch Wallet is a self-custody mobile application for iOS and Android. It integrates the swap engine natively, letting users trade from within their wallet without connecting to a separate dApp. It supports Solana wallets via WalletConnect compatibility with Phantom and Trust Wallet.

Portfolio is a dashboard for tracking holdings, analyzing historical performance, and discovering DeFi opportunities across chains.

1inch Card is a payment card that enables crypto spending at merchants through Apple Pay and Google Pay integration.

1inch Business API packages the swap, order book, portfolio, balance, token, and NFT APIs into a single integration point for wallets, fintech apps, and protocols that want to embed trading infrastructure without building routing from scratch. The infrastructure operator is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified.

Solana Integration

1inch added Solana support in April 2025, after co-founders Anton Bukov and Sergej Kunz announced plans to expand to Solana in December 2024. The timing was deliberate: Solana was generating more than 80% of new token launches across all chains and was the epicenter of memecoin trading activity. The 1inch Solana version provides access to over one million Solana tokens, MEV protection via Fusion, and Fusion+ cross-chain swaps between Solana and EVM chains.

The addition had a measurable market effect. 1inch's share of total DEX aggregator volume rose from 32% in March 2025 to 60% in May 2025, during which the platform captured approximately $31.5 billion of a record $52 billion in total DEX aggregator trade volume that month.

Security and Audits

1inch has a history of external security review. Core contracts—including the aggregation router, Fusion settlement contracts, and the limit order system—have been audited more than fifteen times by firms including OpenZeppelin, ConsenSys Diligence, PeckShield, and ABDK Consulting. OpenZeppelin's audit of the 1inch protocol fee implementation found no security issues.

For the Solana implementation specifically, Hexens conducted a security assessment of the Fusion swap and whitelist programs in February 2025. The audit identified one critical vulnerability related to order reinitialization. The development team fixed the issue prior to mainnet launch, and Hexens validated the fix.

The 1INCH Token

The 1INCH token serves governance and staking functions within the network. Holders stake 1INCH to receive Unicorn Power, a non-transferable governance weight that scales with lock duration. Unicorn Power is used to vote in the 1inch DAO and can be delegated to individual resolvers, who in turn share arbitrage profits with their delegators. Resolvers also require 1INCH stake to access Fusion order flow, creating structural demand from professional market makers operating on the protocol.

Team and Background

Sergej Kunz (CEO) and Anton Bukov (CTO) founded 1inch at the ETHGlobal hackathon in New York in May 2019, where they built the initial DEX aggregator prototype in a sixty-hour sprint. The protocol was formally incorporated as a company in September 2020. Bukov previously contributed to the ETH-NEAR Rainbow Bridge at NEAR Protocol; Kunz ran an educational smart contract security channel called CryptoManiacs prior to founding 1inch. Both have continued to lead the project publicly through its expansion from an EVM-only tool to a multi-chain DeFi infrastructure platform.

Fit in the Solana Ecosystem

1inch brings institutional-grade order routing, cross-chain swap infrastructure, and a mature security track record to Solana. For traders, the practical benefit is access to Solana's extensive token catalog—including new token launches—routed through an engine that has processed tens of billions of dollars in volume across other networks. Fusion+ cross-chain swaps mean Solana users can move directly from SOL or Solana-native tokens into EVM-chain assets in a single signed intent, with no manual bridging step required.