On the coronary heart of DeFi innovation, 1inch has constructed some of the in style decentralized alternate aggregators within the area.
At Paris Blockchain Week 2025, we sat down with Aleksandra “Sasha” Fetisova, Head of Enterprise Improvement at 1inch, to know what’s subsequent: for 1inch, DeFi, and the trade, basically.
Sasha revealed the newest upgrades, challenges within the ecosystem, and the traits she believes will reshape DeFi over the following few years.
Reinventing the Swap Expertise
For these unfamiliar, 1inch doesn’t function like a standard DEX — it’s a DEX aggregator. As a substitute of offering a standalone market, it scans tons of of decentralized exchanges to ship the absolute best charges to its customers.
Current updates, Sasha defined, have pushed this even additional.
“We improved our swap expertise with an intent-based, cross-chain gasless answer referred to as Fusion,” she stated. “It’s interoperable throughout EVM chains, doesn’t depend on third-party bridges, and is protected in opposition to MEV [maximum extractable value] assaults. It’s all about making swaps quicker, cheaper, and safer.”
For normal customers, this implies decrease friction and decrease price, significantly when transferring belongings throughout chains — a ache level that’s lengthy plagued decentralized finance.
Charges are a delicate subject in crypto, the place fuel prices and platform cuts can quietly drain portfolios.
“Our customers may be certain they’re doing direct swaps with none added charges,” Sasha emphasised. “We’re a community-driven undertaking, and we don’t cost customers on our DApp or cell pockets.”
Behind the scenes, she credit the undertaking’s builders for optimizing routing and sensible contracts to maintain swaps environment friendly and low cost. However that’s not the one issue:
“We combination liquidity from over 500 DEXs throughout 10 to 13 chains,” she stated. “Plus, in Fusion mode, we work with skilled market makers — resolvers — who pull liquidity not simply from decentralized sources but additionally from centralized exchanges.”
Safety By way of Minimalism
One characteristic of 1inch’s method is its laser concentrate on safety.
“We’ve by no means been hacked,” Sasha acknowledged firmly. “That’s as a result of we do at the very least 5 to 10 audits each time we replace or launch one thing new.”
But it surely’s not simply audits. She pointed to co-founder and CTO Anton Bukov’s philosophy of writing minimal, extremely environment friendly sensible contracts.
“As a substitute of making bloated, advanced code, Anton spends hours considering after which writes a small, useful piece of code — one thing that may be audited rapidly and runs effectively,” she defined. “It’s a really intentional design.”
Going International: From Decentralized Workforce to Dubai Hub
Though 1inch was born through the remote-work explosion of COVID, the staff just lately opened its first bodily workplace in Dubai.
“We see the IMEA area as very fruitful, particularly beneath present market situations,” Sasha shared. “If our neighborhood is touring to Dubai, we’re completely happy to point out them round!”
She hinted that Dubai’s selection aligns with favorable situations for crypto innovation.
Wanting past 1inch’s quick roadmap, Sasha mirrored on the broader traits shaping DeFi.
“Within the subsequent cycle, we’ll see extra establishments getting into DeFi,” she predicted. “We’re already seeing centralized exchanges like Binance and OKX launching Web3 wallets, and even banks — like Societe Generale with its FORGE platform — exploring DeFi integrations.”
On the extra chaotic facet of the market, she acknowledged the rise of meme cash.
“When Trump launched his meme coin, it introduced in a variety of new customers, however a lot of them acquired wrecked,” she stated. “I’d like to see some sort of schooling or possibly even system notifications warning those who meme cash are meme cash — they’re not assured wealth machines.”
Actual-World Property and AI: The Subsequent Frontiers
Sasha is especially excited concerning the tokenization of real-world belongings.
“I met somebody who tokenized mangoes for an African central financial institution — are you able to think about?” she stated, laughing. “We’re going to see extra actual property tokenization, hedge fund tokenization… These are the traits that might deliver the primary billion customers into crypto.”
And what about onboarding these billions?
“We want AI brokers,” Sasha asserted. “Think about an AI assistant within the 1inch pockets that guides new customers, solutions their questions, and helps them navigate options. I can solely assist possibly 100 folks a day; an AI agent might help 1000’s, 24/7.”
In direction of the top of April, 1inch had a serious announcement: its enlargement to Solana.
“We’re not simply EVM-compatible anymore; we’re increasing to Layer 1s, and we invite customers to guess which chains are coming subsequent.”
The submit Inside 1inch with Aleksandra Fetisova: From Establishments and Memes to the Way forward for DeFi appeared first on CryptoPotato.