The same swap, priced by every route an aggregator can find, ranked by what you would actually receive after gas. Swap interfaces show you one number and call it the price. Several routes exist at any moment and they do not pay the same, and the difference is yours to keep.
What this shows. The same swap, priced by every route an aggregator can find, ranked by what you would actually receive after gas. Swap interfaces show you one number and call it the price. Several routes exist at any moment and they do not pay the same.
The spread between the best and worst route is shown, because that is the part in your control. Nothing here connects a wallet or creates a transaction: it is a quote using a placeholder address.
A swap rarely happens in one pool. An aggregator splits the trade across venues, sometimes hopping through an intermediate asset, hunting the best combined price. Different aggregators search differently, hold different integrations and charge differently, so they arrive at different answers for the identical trade. On a small swap the gap is pennies. On a large one it is real money, and it is the easiest money on this page to keep.
An exchange charges a percentage, typically somewhere between 0.1% and 0.6% depending on the venue and your tier. A chain charges gas, which is close to a fixed amount regardless of size. So the crossover is arithmetic: below a certain trade size the exchange is cheaper because gas dominates, and above it the percentage fee overtakes gas and on chain wins.
On a cheap chain that crossover arrives very early, often in the low tens of pounds, because gas is a fraction of a penny. On Ethereum at a busy moment it can be hundreds. The comparison below runs the numbers against the route you just quoted.
Because a swap rarely happens in one pool. Aggregators split a trade across venues and sometimes route through an intermediate asset, hunting the best combined price. They search differently, hold different integrations and charge differently, so they land on different answers for an identical trade. On a small swap the gap is pennies. On a large one it is real money.
Price impact is your own trade moving the price against you, because you are consuming the liquidity in the pool as you go. It grows with size relative to the pool, which is why a large trade costs a higher percentage than a small one. Slippage is the additional movement between quoting and settling, caused by other people trading in the gap. Impact is caused by you and is predictable; slippage is caused by everyone else and is not.
It depends entirely on size, and the arithmetic is simple. An exchange charges a percentage, typically 0.1% to 0.6%. A chain charges gas, which is close to a fixed amount regardless of trade size. Below the crossover point the exchange is cheaper because gas dominates. Above it, the percentage overtakes gas and on chain wins. The tool works out that crossover from the gas the quoted route actually costs.
Usually, with one caveat. A route through several venues has more moving parts and slightly more chance of failing, and a failed transaction still costs gas. If two routes are within a few pennies, the simpler one is often the better trade. If the gap is meaningful, take the money.
No. It requests quotes using a placeholder address, so nothing is signed, no transaction is created and no wallet is involved. You carry out the swap wherever you choose.
We seal the list every week and keep re-checking every token on it, so you can see what actually happened to them rather than only what is trading today.
