Trading

DEX Swap

9 min read

What it is

Swap any token across 7 chains (Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, BSC, Avalanche, Optimism) via a smart router that queries 3 aggregators (0x Protocol, Paraswap, 1inch) in parallel and picks the best price. Non-custodial — your wallet signs the swap, your keys never touch our backend. Every swap shows you the best route side-by-side with the other aggregators so you can see how many basis points you saved vs the worst route.

How to think about it

This is the entry point to the DEX Trade menu. The page has 4 tabs: Swap (instant), Limit Order (price-targeted), Discover (trending tokens), History (your past swaps). Recurring DCA, Stop Orders, Smart Trade, Grid Bot, Algo Orders, Conditional Bot, Arbitrage, and TradingView Webhooks are dedicated menu items in the DEX Trade menu — they share the same smart router under the hood.

Step-by-step

  1. Connect your wallet

    Click the wallet button top-right. MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, WalletConnect, Rainbow, and any RainbowKit-compatible wallet works. The chain you pick on the page must match the chain your wallet is on — if it does not, we trigger a wallet network switch for you.

  2. Pick a chain and tokens

    Top-bar chain selector picks the network (7 supported). Click the From token to open the picker — search by symbol from the popular list or paste any contract address to add a custom token. The picker shows a GoPlus Safety Score for unfamiliar tokens covering 12 security checks (honeypot, liquidity lock, holder concentration, buy/sell tax, mint authority, etc.).

  3. Get a quote

    Enter an amount and click Get Best Quote. The backend queries 0x Protocol, Paraswap, and 1inch in parallel and shows the best route plus all aggregators side-by-side with savings vs the worst route in basis points. Quote freshness expires after 60 seconds — re-quote if you wait longer.

  4. Review the route + safety panel

    Quote shows execution price, route (which underlying DEX protocols — Uniswap V3, SushiSwap, Curve, etc), gas estimate in USD, minimum received after slippage, and price impact %. The pre-swap check panel calls out: low liquidity, high slippage warning, unverified contract, or any token-safety red flag from GoPlus.

  5. Adjust slippage and confirm

    Slippage presets: 0.1% (blue chips), 0.5% (default), 1% (medium-volatility alts), 3% (memecoins). Click Confirm Swap. For first-time ERC-20 → ERC-20 swaps you sign TWO transactions: (1) Approval (one-time, lets the aggregator pull your tokens), (2) Swap (the actual trade). Native-token swaps (ETH/MATIC/BNB → ERC-20) only need ONE signature.

  6. Watch confirmation

    After signing, the frontend broadcasts the tx through your wallet RPC and submits the txHash to our backend for tracking. Status updates "pending" → "confirmed" or "failed" via on-chain polling every 30-60 seconds. The History tab shows the executed swap with the actual amount received, the route taken, and a block explorer link. Manual swaps go through your wallet's public RPC — for true private-mempool MEV protection on big trades, use Smart Trade with a Flashbots-protected RPC configured in your wallet.

Tips & pitfalls

  • Live-validated end-to-end on Ethereum mainnet: 5 USDC → USDT executed successfully in May 2026 — this page is real money on the line, not a demo.
  • First-time ERC-20 swaps require TWO MetaMask signatures (approval + swap). Subsequent swaps of the same token only need ONE signature — the approval is cached on-chain forever. This matches Uniswap, 1inch, and Matcha UX.
  • New tokens often have 90+ Safety Scores but low liquidity — check the liquidity USD field before swapping. Aim for >$50K liquidity for memecoins, >$1M for anything you would call "established".
  • Slippage is the MAX % the price can move before the swap reverts. Memecoins need 1-3%, blue chips can go 0.1-0.5%. Too low = swap fails. Too high = sandwich risk.
  • On Ethereum, gas is often 5-15% of small swap value. For trades <$500, use Base or Polygon — Base gas is sub-cent for most swaps.
  • The History tab shows the actual route taken and basis points saved vs the worst aggregator — useful for retroactive audit ("did Paraswap really beat 0x?"). Use it to validate that the smart router is actually saving you money on the pairs you trade most.
  • Estimated quote (yellow banner) means no live aggregator route exists for that pair/chain — you cannot execute. Pick a more liquid pair, switch to a chain where the pair has more depth, or use Limit Order to wait for the price to come to you.
  • For one-shot trades use this page. For TWAP/VWAP/Iceberg multi-slice execution on a single short window, use DEX Algo Orders. For recurring weekly buys use DEX DCA. They share the same router; they are NOT competing features.