1inch Review: DEX Aggregator, Fees, Features & Is It Safe?

Last Updated: October 20, 2026

Quick Answer: 1inch is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator that splits token swaps across hundreds of liquidity sources on 18 blockchains, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain and Solana. Its own app charges no swap fee beyond network gas and the pool fees built into each route, although some swaps can include a small infrastructure fee, and its Fusion mode offers gasless swaps protected from MEV. With more than $815 billion in all-time swap volume, 1inch ranked fifth among DEX aggregators by 30-day volume on DefiLlama in October 2026.

Key Takeaways:

• 1inch routes swaps across hundreds of liquidity sources on 18 chains, including Solana, and can split a single trade across several pools.
• Its app charges no swap fee; users pay gas and pool fees, and some swaps may carry an infrastructure fee of up to 0.05% on stablecoins and 0.30% on other pairs.
• Fusion and Fusion+ offer gasless, MEV-protected swaps on one chain and across chains without a bridge.
• 1inch ranked fifth by 30-day aggregator volume in October 2026, behind Jupiter, 0x, KyberSwap and CoW Swap, and independent studies show no aggregator wins every trade.
• The 1INCH governance token traded near $0.093 on October 20, 2026, about 99% below its 2021 high.

What Is 1inch?

1inch is a decentralized exchange aggregator and DeFi platform founded in 2019 by Sergej Kunz and Anton Bukov at the ETHNewYork hackathon. It has grown into one of the largest DEX aggregators, with more than $815 billion in all-time swap volume and over 267 million swaps, according to the 1inch website.

Rather than being a DEX itself, 1inch is a routing and execution layer that sits on top of existing DEXs. When a user wants to swap Token A for Token B, 1inch’s Pathfinder algorithm scans hundreds of liquidity sources, such as Uniswap, Curve, Balancer and PancakeSwap, in real time, and splits the trade across several pools when that gives a better result. When it upgraded Pathfinder in June 2025, 1inch said the new version could deliver up to 6.5% better rates on some swaps.

The 1inch product suite in 2026 includes:

• 1inch Swap: the core aggregator in the 1inch app, with a simple swap view, a Trade mode for classic swaps and limit orders, and a Terminal view for advanced users.
• 1inch Limit Orders: target-price orders executed by resolvers when conditions are met.
• 1inch Fusion: intent-based swaps with MEV protection, settled by competing resolvers.
• 1inch Fusion+: cross-chain swaps across EVM networks and Solana without a bridge.
• 1inch Wallet: a non-custodial mobile wallet with built-in swap aggregation.
• 1inch Business: the developer platform, formerly the 1inch Developer Portal, that gives third-party apps access to 1inch’s swap and data APIs.

How Does 1inch Compare to Other DEX Aggregators?

1inch was one of the first DEX aggregators and is still one of the biggest, but it no longer leads by volume. In the 30 days to October 20, 2026, DefiLlama recorded about $3.09 billion of volume through 1inch, about 4.5% of all aggregator volume, behind Jupiter on Solana and 0x, KyberSwap and CoW Swap on EVM chains. Odos, once a top-five aggregator, shut down on July 30, 2026.

Aggregator	Chains	Fee in its own app	How it finds prices	30-day volume
Jupiter	Solana only	0% to 0.5% on Ultra (0.1% on most token pairs, less on SOL and stablecoin pairs); 0% in manual mode	Ultra engine combining AMM routing and market-maker quotes, MEV-resistant transaction landing	~$12.8B
0x / Matcha	20+ chains	0.25% on most pairs on Matcha; 0% on stablecoin-to-stablecoin swaps	AMM routing plus professional market makers; gasless Auto mode	~$6.9B
KyberSwap	20 chains	No protocol fee; keeps positive slippage on some trades	Classic split routing	~$5.9B
CoW Swap	10 chains	0.02% volume fee (0.003% on stablecoins) plus a share of price improvement	Batch auctions between solvers, peer-to-peer matching, MEV protection	~$3.2B
1inch	18 chains	No swap fee; possible infrastructure fee of up to 0.05% on stablecoins and 0.30% on other pairs	Pathfinder routing (classic) plus Fusion and Fusion+ intent auctions	~$3.1B
Velora (formerly ParaSwap)	10 chains	Share of positive surplus on Delta orders	Market routing plus Delta intent auctions	~$1.2B
MetaMask Swaps	Many	0.875%	Meta-aggregator quoting several aggregators	~$0.25B

Volume: DefiLlama, 30 days to October 20, 2026. Chains and fees: each project’s official documentation, October 2026. Gas and liquidity pool fees apply on top.

Which DEX Aggregator Gives the Best Swap Rates?

No aggregator wins every trade. Independent studies point the same way:

• A 2025 study of Ethereum swaps by Dennis Beelen at Central European University found that, after fees, CoW Swap and Velora delivered prices about 0.1 percentage points better than 1inch on average, while KyberSwap and Odos were not significantly different from 1inch. It concluded that “no single best aggregator exists.”
• An academic paper on solver-based exchanges (Yuminaga, Chen and Sui, 2025), using 2023 and 2024 Ethereum data, found that CoW Swap improved prices most consistently on USDC and Ether trades, especially above 100 ETH, while 1inch Fusion improved large trades by about 0.05% to 0.10% but did worse than a direct Uniswap swap on trades under 1 ETH.
• Studies run by aggregators themselves, such as Uniswap Labs’ 2024 comparison and 0x’s 2020 analysis, each found their own product ahead, so they are best read as marketing rather than evidence.

What decides the best rate is the trade itself. On small trades, gas and visible fees matter more than routing, so a gasless intent mode such as 1inch Fusion or CoW Swap, or a cheap chain, usually helps most. On large trades of major tokens on Ethereum, auction-based systems such as CoW Swap and 1inch Fusion tend to beat simple routing because solvers compete and trades are shielded from MEV. For long-tail tokens, the aggregator with the widest coverage on that chain usually wins. The practical rule is to compare the final amount received, after all fees, on two or three aggregators before a large swap.

Where 1inch Stands Out

• No swap fee in its own app, while Matcha charges 0.25% and MetaMask 0.875%.
• Gasless, MEV-protected swaps through Fusion, and cross-chain swaps without a bridge through Fusion+.
• Broad coverage: 18 chains, covering both EVM networks and Solana with bridgeless cross-chain swaps between them. Jupiter is Solana-only and CoW Swap is EVM-only.
• Developer tools: the 1inch Business API and an MCP server for AI agents, launched in March 2026.

Its weaker points are that independent studies do not show it beating CoW Swap on large Ethereum trades, and that its share of aggregator volume has fallen as Jupiter and 0x have grown.

How Does 1inch Work?

Pathfinder routing algorithm. When a user starts a classic swap, 1inch’s Pathfinder algorithm queries liquidity pools across all integrated protocols. It weighs token prices, pool depth and estimated gas costs to build an execution path, sometimes splitting a single swap across several pools and protocols to reduce price impact. Users pay gas themselves in this mode and can set their own slippage in Trade mode.

Fusion protocol. Fusion is 1inch’s intent-based swap layer, launched in December 2022. Instead of sending a transaction directly, users sign a swap intent. Professional market makers, called resolvers, compete to fill it through a Dutch auction in which the offered rate starts high and declines until a resolver accepts it. Resolvers pay the gas on most Fusion swaps, and because orders are not exposed in the public mempool, they are protected from front-running and sandwich attacks. After an update in March 2026, 1inch says the median intent swap settles in about 14 seconds.

Fusion+. Fusion+ extends the same model to cross-chain swaps. It uses escrow contracts with hashlocks and timelocks on both chains, so users can swap tokens on one network and receive assets on another without a bridge or wrapped tokens.

1inch Limit Orders. Users can set limit orders at a target price. Orders are stored off-chain and filled by resolvers when the market reaches that price, so no gas is paid until execution.

1inch Solana Integration

In April 2025, 1inch integrated the Solana blockchain, bringing Fusion swaps and access to more than 1 million Solana tokens to the 1inch interface, with wallet support including Phantom and Trust Wallet. In August 2025, 1inch added cross-chain swaps between Solana and EVM chains through Fusion+, so users can move between, for example, Ethereum and Solana assets in one swap without a bridge.

Before the integration, Solana users relied mainly on native aggregators such as Jupiter, which remains the largest DEX aggregator by volume. 1inch’s advantage on Solana is that the same interface also covers EVM networks, which suits users who hold assets on both.

1inch AI and MCP Integration

On March 30, 2026, 1inch launched Model Context Protocol (MCP) access through 1inch Business, letting AI agents work with live 1inch infrastructure. Agents can run classic, intent-based and cross-chain swaps and read portfolio data through 1inch’s APIs, instead of relying on static documentation. In August 2026, 1inch added pay-per-call API pricing in USDC on Base through the x402 standard, which lets software agents pay for each request without a subscription.

The MCP server is aimed at teams building automated trading and portfolio tools, which can research swap routes and prepare transactions within a single AI-driven workflow, with developers setting limits such as slippage and execution caps and choosing how transactions are signed.

Societe Generale Stablecoin Integration

In October 2025, 1inch integrated Flowdesk as a resolver for Societe Generale-FORGE’s EURCV and USDCV, regulated euro and dollar stablecoins issued by the digital asset arm of one of France’s largest banks. The tokens can be swapped through 1inch on Ethereum and Solana. 1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz said the integration “marks a significant milestone in bridging traditional finance with DeFi.”

The move reflects a wider trend of regulated, bank-issued stablecoins reaching decentralized trading infrastructure, where professional market makers provide liquidity for institutional and retail users.

1inch Fees Explained

1inch does not charge a swap fee in its own app. Users pay network gas, except in most Fusion swaps, where resolvers pay it, and the liquidity pool fees built into the route, usually 0.01% to 0.30% and up to 1% on some volatile pairs. 1inch’s help center adds two qualifications: some swaps may include an infrastructure fee, which in intent mode is covered by the resolver and in classic mode is paid by the user, and the 1inch Business API keeps positive slippage. According to 1inch’s documentation, its interfaces may charge 0 to 5 basis points on stablecoin pairs and 0 to 30 basis points on other pairs.

Cost	1inch
Swap fee in the 1inch app	0%
Infrastructure fee (some swaps)	0% to 0.05% on stablecoins, 0% to 0.30% on other pairs
Network gas	Paid by the user in classic mode; paid by resolvers in Fusion and Fusion+ (except most swaps from native tokens and on Solana)
Liquidity pool fees	Built into the quote, usually 0.01% to 0.30%
Deposits and withdrawals	None (non-custodial)

For comparison, Matcha charges 0.25% on most swaps, MetaMask Swaps 0.875% and Jupiter Ultra about 0.1% on most Solana swaps. Uniswap Labs removed its own interface fee after the Uniswap “UNIfication” governance vote passed in December 2025.

On Ethereum mainnet, gas usually matters more than any fee for small swaps, which is why layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum and Base, or gasless Fusion swaps, are the cheaper choice for smaller trades.

Supported Chains

1inch’s help center lists 18 supported networks, its developer documentation lists 17 (all except Robinhood Chain), and its homepage says “18+ chains”:

• Ethereum and Ethereum layer 2s: Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, zkSync Era, Linea, Unichain and Robinhood Chain.
• Other EVM chains: BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Gnosis, Sonic, Cronos, Monad, HyperEVM and Arc.
• Non-EVM: Solana.

1inch added Solana, Linea, Sonic and Unichain in 2025 and Robinhood Chain on July 1, 2026. Cronos, Monad and HyperEVM followed in early September 2026, and Arc on September 16, 2026. Fantom is no longer supported. Cross-chain swaps between Solana and EVM chains have been available through Fusion+ since August 2025.

1inch Wallet

The 1inch Wallet is a non-custodial mobile wallet available on iOS and Android. It features:

• Built-in swaps using 1inch’s aggregation, including Fusion+ cross-chain swaps
• Support for tokens across 1inch’s supported networks
• Transaction history with gas cost tracking
• Scam token detection and warnings
• No KYC or personal information required

Because the wallet uses 1inch’s aggregator, users can swap at aggregated rates without leaving the app. It competes with MetaMask, Trust Wallet and Phantom as a non-custodial option. For a detailed look, see our 1inch Wallet review.

1inch API

1inch Business, renamed from the 1inch Developer Portal in October 2025, gives third-party applications access to 1inch’s swap routing, cross-chain swaps, price data and portfolio APIs. It is used by wallets, portfolio trackers and DeFi protocols that want to offer aggregated swaps without building their own router; Bitget Wallet, for example, partnered with 1inch in 2024 to use its routing. Access is sold through tiered plans, which include an infrastructure fee on swaps, and since August 2026 developers can also pay per call in USDC.

1INCH Token

1INCH is the governance and staking token of the 1inch Network. Holders vote on DAO proposals, and staking 1INCH gives “Unicorn Power,” which counts toward governance and can be delegated to resolvers, the professional market makers that fill Fusion orders. Resolver access itself now runs through KYC and KYB onboarding on the 1inch Business Portal, and the earlier Unicorn Power-based whitelist is currently disabled.

Metric (October 20, 2026)	Value
Price	~$0.093
Market cap	~$133 million (rank 167)
Circulating supply	~1.43 billion 1INCH
Max supply	1.5 billion 1INCH
All-time high	$7.87 (May 8, 2021)
All-time low	$0.065 (July 1, 2026)

Source: CoinMarketCap.

1INCH trades about 99% below its all-time high, and the protocol’s growth in volume has not translated into token value. In January 2026, after a large token sale by an address that had received vesting unlocks, 1inch said it would review its tokenomics during 2026. A “Staking v2” proposal that would replace the current decaying staking power with a lock-based model has been under discussion since October 2025 but has not gone to a vote.

1inch Security

1inch’s contracts are audited by firms including OpenZeppelin, Nethermind, Hexens and Theori, and it runs bug bounties on Immunefi with rewards of up to $500,000 for smart-contract flaws. Its record is not spotless, however:

• October 2024: a supply-chain attack on a third-party code library injected a fake wallet prompt into the 1inch web app. Users who signed it lost about $768,000 through malicious token approvals. 1inch’s contracts, APIs and Wallet were not affected, and a DAO proposal later offered to reimburse verified victims.
• March 2025: an attacker exploited a bug in the deprecated Fusion v1 settlement contract and took about $5 million from resolvers that still used it. End users’ funds were not affected, and most of the money was returned after negotiations in exchange for a bounty.
• May 2026: about $6 million was drained from TrustedVolumes, a market maker that acts as a 1inch resolver, through its own custom contract. Security firm Blockaid linked the attack to the same attacker, while 1inch said there was no impact on its systems, infrastructure or user funds.

Non-custodial architecture. 1inch never holds user funds. Swaps are executed on-chain from the user’s own wallet, and if a classic swap fails, the tokens stay in the wallet.

MEV protection via Fusion. Fusion’s intent-based design keeps orders out of the public mempool, which protects eligible swaps from front-running and sandwich attacks.

For users, the bigger everyday risks are phishing sites that copy the 1inch interface and unlimited token approvals. Always check that you are on the official 1inch domain, approve only the amount you need to swap, and revoke old approvals regularly.

1inch Forward: Education Initiative

In March 2026, 1inch launched 1inch Forward, an education campaign that pairs an open letter urging US business and law schools to teach DeFi with a campus tour for students. The tour started at the University of Pennsylvania on March 27, followed by Yale University on April 10 and Cornell Tech on April 24, with later stops at Indiana University, Stanford, the University of Michigan and Harvard.

The initiative coincided with 1inch research showing an 84% year-over-year increase in Google searches for “Blockchain Jobs,” from 5.59 million to 10.3 million, and a 269% rise in searches for “DeFi Developer Jobs.”

What’s New at 1inch in 2026

• Trade mode and Terminal (March 3, 2026): the 1inch app added a Trade mode for classic swaps with custom gas and slippage settings and limit orders, and renamed its Pro mode to Terminal. 1inch says intent swaps now settle about twice as fast, with a median of 14 seconds.
• 1inch Business MCP (March 30, 2026): AI agents can run classic, intent-based and cross-chain swaps and read portfolio data through 1inch’s API; see our report on 1inch’s MCP access for AI agents.
• Aqua (July 28, 2026): a shared liquidity layer, launched publicly on 13 EVM chains after eight security audits, that lets liquidity providers use the same capital across several strategies.
• Pay-per-call API (August 14, 2026): developers can pay for 1inch API calls in USDC on Base through the x402 standard.
• New chains: Robinhood Chain (July 2026), and Cronos, Monad, HyperEVM and Arc (September 2026).

1inch has also built emergency routing to help users exit positions during an Aave withdrawal freeze; see our report on how 1inch built emergency routing for Aave users.

Who Is 1inch Best For?

Active DeFi traders who make frequent or larger swaps and care about execution quality. Aggregation and MEV protection matter most on larger trades; on small trades, gas and fees tend to outweigh any rate improvement, so Fusion or a layer-2 network is the better choice.

Multi-chain users who swap assets across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Solana and the other 18 supported networks from one interface, including cross-chain swaps without a bridge.

Developers and businesses that need programmatic access to aggregated DeFi liquidity through 1inch Business, including wallet providers, trading firms and teams building AI agents.

DeFi newcomers can use 1inch for simple swaps, but should start on low-cost networks such as Arbitrum or Base. The interface requires familiarity with wallets, token approvals and slippage settings, and is more complex than a centralized exchange.

1inch Pros and Cons

Pros:

• No swap fee in the 1inch app, while Matcha charges 0.25% and MetaMask Swaps 0.875%
• Aggregated routing across hundreds of liquidity sources on 18 chains, including Solana
• Gasless, MEV-protected Fusion swaps and bridgeless cross-chain swaps with Fusion+
• AI agent (MCP) access and a full developer platform through 1inch Business
• Access to regulated bank-issued stablecoins such as Societe Generale-FORGE’s EURCV and USDCV
• Non-custodial: user funds stay in the user’s wallet

Cons:

• No fiat on-ramp of its own; crypto must be bought elsewhere first
• Complex for beginners: gas, slippage settings and token approvals require DeFi familiarity
• Independent studies found CoW Swap slightly better on large Ethereum trades, and 1inch’s share of aggregator volume has fallen
• A third-party library attack on the 1inch web app cost users about $768,000 in October 2024
• Some swaps can include an infrastructure fee of up to 0.30%
• The 1INCH token is down about 99% from its all-time high and gives holders no direct share of revenue

Where to Use and Buy 1inch (1INCH)

Using the 1inch aggregator: open the 1inch app from the official 1inch website and connect an EVM wallet such as MetaMask, Ledger or Coinbase Wallet, or a Solana wallet such as Phantom. No account, KYC or email is required. The 1inch Wallet mobile app offers the same swaps natively.

Buying the 1INCH token on centralized exchanges:

• Binance: 1INCH/USDT and other pairs, with the deepest global liquidity
• Coinbase: 1INCH/USD for US users
• Kraken: 1INCH/USD and 1INCH/EUR
• KuCoin: 1INCH/USDT
• Gate: 1INCH/USDT
• OKX: 1INCH/USDT with spot and margin options

Buying 1INCH on a DEX: swap for 1INCH directly in the 1inch app, or on Uniswap on Ethereum.

Staking 1INCH: staking 1INCH on the 1inch DAO platform gives Unicorn Power for governance votes; resolver delegation exists, but Unicorn Power-based resolver farming and whitelisting are currently disabled. A proposed Staking v2 model would change how staking power is calculated, so check the current terms before locking tokens.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. DeFi protocols carry smart-contract, market and phishing risks; always verify you are using official websites and do your own research.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is 1inch?
1inch is a decentralized exchange aggregator founded in 2019 by Sergej Kunz and Anton Bukov. Instead of holding its own liquidity, it searches hundreds of DEX pools across 18 blockchains, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base and Solana, and routes each swap for the best result. It also offers gasless Fusion swaps, cross-chain swaps, a mobile wallet and the 1inch Business developer platform.

What is a DEX aggregator?
A DEX aggregator is a service that compares prices across many decentralized exchanges and routes a swap through the best combination of pools, sometimes splitting one trade across several of them. This can reduce slippage compared with using a single exchange. Leading aggregators include Jupiter on Solana and 0x, KyberSwap, CoW Swap and 1inch on Ethereum and other EVM chains.

Is 1inch safe?
1inch is generally safe. Its contracts are audited, it is non-custodial and no flaw in its core swap contracts has cost users funds. However, users lost about $768,000 in October 2024 when a compromised third-party library put a fake approval prompt into the 1inch web app, and resolvers lost about $5 million in a March 2025 exploit of an old contract. Phishing sites and unlimited approvals remain the main risks.

What are 1inch fees?
1inch charges no swap fee in its own app. Users pay network gas, except in most gasless Fusion swaps, and the liquidity pool fees included in each quote, usually 0.01% to 0.30%. Some swaps may include a small infrastructure fee, up to 0.05% on stablecoin pairs and 0.30% on other pairs, according to 1inch’s documentation. By comparison, Matcha charges 0.25% and MetaMask Swaps 0.875%.

How does 1inch make money?
1inch earns revenue mainly through its developer platform, 1inch Business, which sells API access through paid plans, charges infrastructure fees on some swaps and keeps positive slippage on API trades. Some swaps in the 1inch app may also carry a small infrastructure fee. Despite more than $800 billion in all-time volume, co-founder Sergej Kunz said in September 2026 that the company was not yet profitable.

How does 1inch compare to other DEX aggregators?
1inch ranked fifth among DEX aggregators by 30-day volume on DefiLlama in October 2026, behind Jupiter, 0x, KyberSwap and CoW Swap. It covers 18 chains, including Solana, charges no swap fee in its own app and offers gasless, MEV-protected Fusion swaps. Matcha charges 0.25% and MetaMask 0.875%, while CoW Swap takes a small volume fee plus a share of price improvement.

Which DEX aggregator gives the best swap rates?
No single aggregator gives the best rate on every trade. A 2025 study of Ethereum swaps found CoW Swap and Velora about 0.1 percentage points better than 1inch after fees, while KyberSwap matched it. Results depend on trade size, chain, token pair, gas and MEV protection, so it is worth comparing the final amount received on two or three aggregators before a large swap.

What is the 1inch Fusion protocol?
Fusion is 1inch’s intent-based swap mode, launched in December 2022. Users sign a swap request instead of sending a transaction, and professional market makers called resolvers compete to fill it through a Dutch auction. Resolvers pay gas on most Fusion swaps, and orders stay out of the public mempool, which protects them from front-running. Fusion+ extends the model to cross-chain swaps.

What is the 1INCH token?
1INCH is the governance and staking token of the 1inch Network, with a maximum supply of 1.5 billion. Staking it gives Unicorn Power, which is used mainly for DAO votes. On October 20, 2026, 1INCH traded near $0.093, with a market value of about $133 million, roughly 99% below its all-time high of $7.87 set in May 2021.

Does 1inch work with Solana?
Yes. 1inch added Solana in April 2025, bringing Fusion swaps and access to more than 1 million Solana tokens, with wallets such as Phantom supported. Since August 2025, Fusion+ has also allowed cross-chain swaps between Solana and EVM networks such as Ethereum, Arbitrum and Base without a bridge, all from the same 1inch interface.