Why the actual DEX does not matter so much

There are a lot of healthy discussions ongoing - thanks for everyone’s input this far!

I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight why the actual DEX that we choose might not matter so much.

Today, we are seeing DEXs like Swapr, Sushiswap or Uniswap as apps and these apps have some issues. You have to choose on which app you want to trade and if you make a bad choice, you might trade on a DEX that has minimal liquidity and thus you would face severe losses due to huge slippage. In addition, each DEX is subject to MEV which extracts value from you as a trader.

Both problems (choice of DEX and MEV) are significantly improved trading via CowSwap. CowSwap is a DEX aggregator that feeds back (some of) the MEV to the users and it is built by our frens at Gnosis - if you want to learn more about CowSwap I recommend this really interesting UnCommonCore episode by Hasu.

So in essence CowSwap is commoditizing existing DEXs and thereby improves not just UX but also guarantees best prices for users. Since CowSwap is available on Gnosis Chain, I would suggest CowSwap as the default entry point for people seeking to trade HOPR - and thus focus the discussion on who offers the best option for the underlying DEX (e.g. I see an offer from Swapr to distribute $SWPR if we move liquidity to them).

Of course some basic security requirements have to be met. If the DEX is hackable, all funds would still be lost, but I don’t see that as an issue with the DEXs that are being discussed here and which have stood some test of time already.

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you say that i think cowwap is very similar to 1 inch

I only use decentralized exchanges to buy coins and then withdraw to my wallet to keep, so I don’t worry about losing money, what I care about is cheap and easy to use transaction fees.

How does CowSwap compare to 1inch? Which is CowSwap preferable in your opinion?

The major difference between CowSwap and aggregators like 1inch is that the former feeds MEV back to you, the trader. That is made possible by several competing “solvers” who compete for offering you the best price execution. I don’t know if people here are aware that 1inch is actually doing the opposite by pocketing negative slippage which I find pretty lame.

Beyond getting the best price, I like the attitude towards Open Source Software and decentralization that CowSwap is living much more than e.g. 1inch.

(I know this sounds pretty shilly, so I’m disclosing that currently I have no financial upsides in CowSwap)

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I don’t think the chosen dex will be too insignificant. I think the reason why the liquidity obtained from the sale of Dao is not listed on platforms such as sushi swap or 1inch, but on uniswap is because uniswap has more awareness and appeals to more users. Uniswap is one of the pioneers in the dex industry to provide such adaptation and break new ground with its fee awards. In previous dex trials, it limited the user’s control over his own money (forkdelta, token.store…) Do you want to trade in a dex adapted by the crypto community or a newly opened dex? Of course, dexes may have technical problems, so I can’t say anything because I don’t know much about it. (I learned about the existence of MEV from you.:slight_smile: ) Frankly, I hesitate to trade on a newly opened dex that is not very well known. I discovered it thanks to you on Swapr, and when I made a transaction for the first time, I opened a new wallet and did it from there.:slight_smile: It can be considered that I have just learned Coswapi. Although it provides more security to the user and compares liquidity from other dexes, it is a not-so-known dex. That’s why I think it’s important where your liquidity is at this stage. If Coswap was a popular dex, it wouldn’t matter where the liquidity was. Unfortunately, crypto adaptation is not sufficient. Most people have problems even sending money from one exchange to another. (For example, they send a coin from the Eth network to an exchange that supports the gnosis chain.:slight_smile:) I think your question is one that can be discussed once there is sufficient adaptation in Crypto. I guess that’s why we’re currently discussing which dex should be added to the proposals.:slight_smile:Thank you for letting us know about Coswap. Best regards…

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I guess Swapr is ok

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100% agree for OSS and 1inch

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the first time I heard about this aggregator, I think like many here. many people use coingecko or coinmarketcap to find out where they can exchange/buy the tokens they need, but there will be no prices from swapr. while the crypto market is very narrow and it is good to support the useful initiatives of individual talented teams, but it is not worth throwing a huge part of the funds into such an adventure for the sake of bonus rewards. people pay thousands of $commission for nft mines and it doesn’t scare them much. for the sake of reduced commissions, no one will go to a little-known site.

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Fully agree.

I also see some cross-chain DEX aggregators. It means the actual chain will not matter so much either in the future. Such aggregators will sum all hopr/dai pair liquidities on different Chains and different DEX together. It only benefits large amount swap at the moment. For small amount swap, we still need sufficient liquidity on a cheap chain, no matter on which DEX.

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Interesting clarification, perhaps worth doing so.

Hi, I agree that the ability to discover tokens is important. But I’d argue that (unfortunately) very few people use DEXs to discover tokens. To make markets worse, you even need to manually import the HOPR token on Uniswap first.

But the good thing is that now HOPR is listed on Coinbase which I think is a great way to discover the project - although that potential is of limited direct impact on a bear market like right now. So maximizing utility for the community should be the goal here imo. It hurts to see how many people paid $50 to get $500 worth of HOPR. That’s why I’m very supportive of Gnosis Chain to beat cheaper and more community friendly way to trade HOPR, even if that’s not what mainstream users use (they have Coinbase).

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Hey, perhaps in this case it would be advisable to diversify risks - to distribute the liquidity equally on several GC DEX and transfer some of the liquidity to ETH pair on Uniswap?

25% xDAI pair on Sushiswap
25% xDAI pair on Uniswap
25% xDAI pair on Swapr
and
25% ETH pair on Uniswap

That would be 5 proposal :slight_smile:

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I’m not sure if that’s actually less risky though?

@SCBuergel’s point is that with Cowswap the specific exchange(s) don’t matter, but I think it still matters a lot how the liquidity is distributed.

I.e., $1m on Sushi is equivalent to $1m on Swapr. But $1m split between two exchanges isn’t the same as all $1m on one. (As an extreme example, clearly putting $1 on a million exchanges would be different to $1m on one)

This isn’t my area of expertise though

I have to read and learn more. But if you ditribute the amount on different dexes. What is the risk?

The main ones? Is it impossible to use more than one dex?