TL;DR

• 0x API is live on Polygon, aggregating liquidity across all existing sources — including QuickSwap, SushiSwap, Curve, Dodo, mStable, Dfyn, Cometh and more.
• We are proud to be launching support for 0x API on Polygon alongside our initial partners Matcha, DexGuru, DexKit, Dodo, MyCrypto.com, Set Protocol, Zapper and Zerion.
• Check out our documentation and start building on Polygon with 0x API today!

The 0x API is designed to make it easy for DeFi developers to tap into DEX liquidity in a fast, reliable, and easy to use way so you can focus on what matters: your product. Since launch, 0x API has facilitated over 1.5M trades from nearly 300K unique traders that in total represent more than $27 billion in volume traded across Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain.

0x API powers the top DeFi teams on both Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, and today we are incredibly excited to continue expanding the reach of our product by bringing the experience our integrators know and love to developers building on Polygon. With this, we want to help our integrators and the Polygon developer ecosystem onboard the next 1,000,000 users to crypto.

Why Polygon?

You asked, we delivered!

0x 🍵 on Twitter: "Where do you want to see 0x API next? ⛓️👀 / Twitter"

Where do you want to see 0x API next? ⛓️👀

0x Labs’ mission is to create a tokenized world where all value can flow freely. We believe that exposing the broadest set of users to smart contracts, self-custody wallets, and DEX markets is key to achieving that mission.

We shared our framework for evaluating new networks in October 2020 and our phased approach for rolling out support in other Layer 1 and L2 networks back in February this year. Given the role of 0x protocol as a middleware protocol that sits in between the blockchain consensus layer and the application layer that’s exposed to end users, the needs of users and integrators weigh heavily in the evaluation.

Polygon has demonstrated significant growth a. Over the past 3 months, Polygon has developed a vibrant ecosystem. Earlier this month it processed almost 3X as many transactions as Ethereum and today represents an exciting opportunity to expand the reach of 0x protocol and that of our 0x API partners to a large and growing global user base.

We are proud to launch 0x API support for Polygon alongside our initial launch partners Matcha, DexGuru, DexKit, Dodo, MyCrypto.com, Set Protocol, Zapper and Zerion.

We are excited about this step in our mission to create a tokenized world where all value can flow freely, and we have a lot more coming! In the coming weeks we will continue adding support for more L1 chains and L2 solutions and we look forward to working with more teams that want to help their users explore decentralized exchange in this growing multichain world.

Start building on Polygon with 0x API

If you are looking to add Polygon trading to your product, 0x API is the best place to start. 0x API currently aggregates all existing liquidity sources on Polygon — including QuickSwap, SushiSwap, Curve, Dodo, mStable, Dfyn, Cometh and more.

You can find our updated docs here. If you are familiar with 0x API /swap on Ethereum or BSC, you will notice the integration process is very similar. Here’s an example quote request.

Support for 0x RFQ and open order book orders is not yet available, but it is coming in our next iteration of 0x API on Polygon. Stay tuned!

If you are new to building with 0x API, don’t hesitate to reach out on Discord if you run into any problems.

TL;DR

• 0x API adds support for Binance Smart Chain, aggregating liquidity across all existing liquidity sources on BSC — including PancakeSwap, SushiSwap, DODO and more.
• We are proud to be launching 0x API’s BSC support alongside our initial partners Matcha, Zapper, Dex Guru, Zerion, Dodo and DexKit.
• Check out our documentation and start building on BSC with 0x API today!

The 0x API is designed to make it easy for DeFi developers to tap into DEX liquidity in a fast, reliable, and easy to use way so you can focus on what matters: your product. Since launch in January 2020, 0x API has facilitated nearly 700,000 trades from over 150K unique traders that in total represent more than $7 billion in trading volume.

0x API powers the top DeFi teams on Ethereum and today we are excited to bring the experience our integrators know and love to developers building on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). With this, we want to help our integrators and the broader BSC developer ecosystem onboard the next 100,000 users to crypto.

Why BSC and why now?

0x Labs’ mission is to create a tokenized world where all value can flow freely. We believe that exposing the broadest set of users to smart contracts, self-custody wallets, and DEX markets is key to achieving that mission.

We shared our framework for evaluating new networks in October 2020 and our phased approach for rolling out support in February 2021. Given the role of 0x protocol as a middleware protocol that sits in between the blockchain consensus layer and the application layer that’s exposed to end users, the needs of users and integrators weigh heavily in the evaluation. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) unambiguously satisfies the criteria we set out and the decision to expand to BSC was impartial. Over the past 3–6 months, BSC has developed a vibrant ecosystem. Today, BSC represents an exciting opportunity to expand the reach of 0x protocol and that of our 0x API partners to a large and growing global user base.

We are proud to launch 0x API support for BSC alongside our initial launch partners Matcha, Zapper, Dex Guru, Zerion, Dodo and DexKit.

However, BSC is the first of many EVM blockchains where 0x API will be available. In the coming weeks and months we will add support for more L1 chains and L2 solutions and we look forward to working with more teams that want to help their users explore decentralized exchange in a multichain world.

Learn more about our phased approach to porting 0x Protocol to new blockchains.

Start building on BSC with 0x API

If you are looking to add BSC trading to your product, 0x API is the best place to start. 0x API currently aggregates all existing liquidity sources on BSC — including PancakeSwap, SushiSwap, DODO and more. Support for 0x RFQ and open order book orders will be available in our next iteration.

You can find our updated docs here.

If you are familiar with 0x API /swap on Ethereum, you will notice the integration process is very similar. Here’s an example quote request.

If you are new to building with 0x API, don’t hesitate to reach out on Discord if you run into any problems.

TL;DR

• v4 is the most powerful upgrade of the 0x Protocol, making it the most gas-efficient DEX protocol (up to 70% gas savings with RFQ liquidity).
• Users can expect more competitive liquidity from professional market makers and in turn better prices through 0x API.
• The default allowanceTarget returned by /swap/v1 has changed to 0xdef1c0ded9bec7f1a1670819833240f027b25eff. This allows us to lower costs for your end users by a measurable amount. The old allowance will be deprecated on March 31st.
• If you are a developer building with 0x API and consuming RFQ liquidity via /swap/v1, we encourage you to update the takerAddress to be a non-contract EOA address to ensure your continued access to RFQ liquidity.
• We will stop supporting /swap/v0 on March 31st.

The 0x API is designed to make it easy for DeFi developers like you to tap into both off-chain and on-chain DEX liquidity in a fast, reliable, and easy to use way so you can focus on what matters: your product. As of February 12th, 2020, the /swap/v1 endpoint supports 0x Protocol v4.

This version of the 0x Protocol is the most powerful update made to the protocol to date, turning it into the most gas-efficient DEX. As a result, users of applications built with 0x API can expect more gas efficient orders (up to 70% gas saved for RFQ orders and 10% for limit orders) and even better prices from 0x professional market makers.

If you are building with 0x API /swap/v1 , here’s what you need to know:

New allowanceTarget

The default allowanceTarget returned by /swap/v1 has changed to 0xdef1c0ded9bec7f1a1670819833240f027b25eff. This allows us to lower costs for your end users by a measurable amount:

However, we understand if you don’t want to migrate your users just yet. This is a soft change and the old allowance (0xf740b67da229f2f10bcbd38a7979992fcc71b8eb) will continue working until March 31st — when we deprecate it.

Upgrade takerAddress

With the update to 0x Protocol v4, RFQ orders no longer have a protocol fee and require a tx.origin to be specified. This allows 0x market makers to price for the user, rather than the entire integration.

If you are using /swap/v1, note that it now requires takerAddress to be the end user submitting the transaction (i.e. an EOA). Depending on your integration, you might be setting takerAddress to a contract address you were filling from. The expected experience is that when takerAddress is a contract no RFQ orders are served, so we highly encourage you to update takerAddress to be a non-contract EOA address to ensure your continued access to RFQ liquidity.

Deprecation of /swap v0

We will stop supporting /swap/v0 on March 31st. If you are currently using the older version of /swap we highly encourage you to move over as soon as possible. v1 has a lot of benefits over v0, including:

• Aggregation of 0x API exclusive liquidity sources, 0x RFQT and 0x private AMM, which translates into better pricing.
• Lower gas usage due to our super optimized contract that allows 0x API to source Uniswap and Sushiswap liquidity in a more gas efficient way than the default Uniswap and Sushiswap contracts.
• The 0x protocol fee is no longer incurred for RFQ and external liquidity sources, lowering transaction costs further.

You can learn more about these and other benefits here. If you are ready to move over to v1, we put together this guide to help you in the process.

New to building with 0x API?

Check out our docs and hit us up on Discord if you have any questions.

🤝 Join the 0x community

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TL;DR

• 7 out of 10 times 0x API offers better adjusted prices than 1inch, Dex Ag, Paraswap and Uniswap. That is, the price after transaction fees are paid.
• 0x API v1 delivers market-leading gas efficiency. With a custom, highly-optimized architecture, accessing Uniswap’s liquidity through 0x API is now as cheap and often cheaper than going to Uniswap directly.
• Aggregators exist to remove the mental hurdle of finding the right platform to trade by guaranteeing that you get the best the ecosystem has to offer. However, not all aggregators are created equal: they have different levels of performance in terms of pricing, quoted price accuracy, gas usage, revert rates and response times.
• The best quoted price doesn’t always result in the best adjusted price. Just like buying an airline ticket, you need to be careful about hidden fees/costs. While the base ticket might be cheaper, when you price in all of the add-ons (baggage fees, preferred boarding, seat assignments, etc.), you might end up paying more.
• 0x API and Matcha — which uses 0x API under the hood — are two products launched by 0x Labs to offer DeFi developers and traders a simple way to buy and sell assets at the best price possible across all DEX liquidity sources.

DEX liquidity wars and the rise of aggregation

In the past few weeks, there has been a surge of new liquidity sources, with over $4Bn capital spread across more than 15 sources and new ones coming up every week. As a result, DEX liquidity has become more fragmented than ever, making it more complex for DeFi users to find the best price for a given trade.

This in turn has led to the rise of aggregation, which has grown significantly over the last 12 months — representing ~9.6% of total DEX trading volume in Q3. However, aggregation is still somewhat misunderstood. For example, while quoted price is often used as the only metric to compare aggregators’ performance, it is not uncommon for some aggregators to quote $100 and consistently settle at $90. Quoted price does not reflect what the user ends up with, so it poses the question if this is the right metric to compare aggregators’ performance.

We aim to bring more transparency to the industry and open up the conversation on how to objectively measure and compare the performance of aggregators.

Adjusted price — the golden metric for aggregators

We believe the following principles must guide a team building a high-performing, professional-grade aggregator:

1. Accuracy: An aggregator should be accurate — that is, the price at settlement should equal the priced quoted. Slight variance is acceptable as there will always be market movements between the time a trade is submitted and the time that trade is confirmed on-chain. However, all else equal, an aggregator that quotes more accurate prices is a better product. What you see should be what you get.
2. Low cost: More work performed on-chain results in more gas used and that in turn leads to higher gas cost. An aggregator should aim to lower the overhead as much as possible to ensure the user is getting the best deal. An aggregator should also adapt to the current gas price market and adjust routes accordingly. Every dollar spent on gas should earn the user more.
3. Low revert rates: an aggregator protects its user by maintaining low revert rates across all trade sizes. It is a frustrating experience when a transaction fails as the user still pays for gas.

Ultimately, we combine these principles into a single golden metric: adjusted price.

In this study we analyze the above mentioned metrics individually, but we focus primarily on adjusted price. Adjusted price is what a user receives after a transaction is completed on-chain and transaction costs (gas and fees) are paid. The adjusted price can be calculated using the following formula:

adjusted_price = sold_amount_usd / ( bought_amount_usd — transaction_costs_usd )

We believe this is a better metric to use for comparing aggregators as it is what the user ultimately gets in their wallet. Let’s use an example to illustrate this:

A user wants to trade 100 DAI for USDC. Aggregator #1 quotes 100 USDC with a transaction cost of $5. Using the formula above, we can determine that adjusted price = 100 / ( 100–5 ) = $1.05.

The same user checks out a second aggregator. Aggregator #2 quotes 104 USDC for the same 100 DAI, but with a transaction cost of $10. In this case, adjusted price = 100 / (104–10) = $1.06.

In this example, Aggregator #1 wins as it ultimately finds a cheaper rate for the user to convert 100 DAI to 100 USDC. While Aggregator #2 initially quoted a better rate and bought more tokens, you can observe how the transaction cost impacted the adjusted price. In conclusion, spending an additional $5 to only receive an additional 4 USDC resulted in a more expensive deal for the user.

We simulated 59,975 trades and calculated adjusted prices across different exchanges. Here’s what we found:

0x API outperforms other exchanges, on average, 72% of the time. This means that, a trader using a 0x API integrator like Matcha will receive the best price available across all DEX 7 out of 10 times.

When it comes to adjusted prices, we observe a difference in winning rates as the value size increases. For low value trades, Uniswap performs well since transaction costs are cheap relative to most aggregators. As trade sizes increase, aggregators perform their function and begin to split trades across multiple different sources. 0x API performs well on all trade sizes and other aggregators start to become competitive as the trade sizes increases. An aggregator like 1inch, for example, becomes increasingly competitive with 0x API in larger trade sizes due to their large number of supported sources.

The methodology

The data shared in this section comes from a simulation tool we built at 0x Labs that allows us to continually quote and execute trades for various token pairs, trade sizes and confirmation delays. For the more technical crowd, the simulation is done by performing an eth_call on a Geth node and using state overrides to fund and track swaps, which includes metrics such as tokens bought and sold as well as gas used.

The exchanges under observation are 0x API, 1inch, Dex Ag, Paraswap and Uniswap. For this study we used the 20 most traded pairs across DEXs and, using their publicly available APIs, we sampled an average of 11,995 trades per exchange. Trade sizes ranged from $100 to $1M and settlement delays varied between 0 and 180 seconds (simulating the time spent waiting in the mempool). The simulation ran for a period of ~78 hours during which gas price fluctuated between 47 and 194 gwei, this allowed us to ensure the study reflected market conditions.

In the visuals presented throughout this report, 0x API is represented by the green colored bars and Matcha (0x API). A winner is considered a winner if it outperforms the other exchanges by more than 0.5 basis points. Prices within 0.5 basis points of the best price are considered a tie. A “tie with Matcha” means that 0x API and one or more exchanges tied. “Tie without Matcha” means that two or more exchanges, excluding 0x API, tied. Colors are consistent throughout the graphs.

Accuracy, gas usage, revert rates and response times

In this study we analyze three different prices, so let’s define them:

• Quoted price is the price initially advertised for a given trade — the “sticker” price users see in the UI.
• Realized price is the price that is settled after a delay. The time it takes between the trade submission and confirmation on-chain is typically between 0 to 180 seconds.
• Adjusted price is what a user gets once a transaction is realized and transaction costs (gas and fees) are paid. In other words, the realized price minus costs.

We will start by looking at quoted and realized prices.

In the graphs above, you can notice that Uniswap is no longer present in any of the trade size buckets. It is in stark contrast to the previous graphs showing the adjusted price winners. In other words, while it does not display the best price, sometimes it offers better adjusted prices for trades under $5K due to low fees. As mentioned before, this winning percentage shrinks significantly in the higher value trades as aggregators perform better by splitting trades across sources to find the best price.

You can also observe in these graphs that 0x API’s winning rate in quoted and realized prices is significantly lower than its winning rate for adjusted price — averaging 19% for quoted and realized prices and up to 57% and 63%, respectively, when we include ties. 0x API’s average winning rate for adjusted prices is ~72%. The reason why the winning rate is lower for quoted and realized prices is that we made an explicit trade-off in the design of our smart order routing logic to account for gas costs when calculating the trading route for an order. By accounting for gas costs in 0x API’s smart order routing, we guarantee that the benefit in price outweighs the cost of sourcing liquidity from various sources.

Unfortunately, many aggregators appear to optimize to win quoted price, that is, the “sticker” price, as it enables them to attract more users. However, as exemplified at the beginning of this report with Aggregator #2, aggregators who do not account for the cost of the transaction perform better in quoted price as they are willing to spend more, but it actually results in less value for the user. As a result, the best quoted price doesn’t always result in the best adjusted price.

A good analogy for this is airline tickets. Have you ever booked a flight through a certain airline because it seemed cheaper than the others, but then you had to pay extra for choosing your seat and then a little more for checking in your luggage? While the base ticket might be cheaper, when you price in all of the add-ons you might end up paying more. A similar thing happens with some aggregators: the price seems to be better than others when you get the quote, but once the transaction is completed you end up with a lot less money than you should have.

Wait, but why?

Let’s take 1inch for example, since they have the highest winning rate for quoted and realized prices. Their winning rate shrinks significantly from quoted to realized to adjusted price, declining from 22% to 19% to 14%. This means that while 2 out of 10 times it might appear to be a better deal, once settled and minus costs, it is not often the case.

The variance between quoted and realized prices can generally be explained by either inaccuracy or changes in the market that occur during the time delay between quote and on-chain settlement — which can make the quoted price no longer available. The variance between realized and adjusted is simply the additional cost incurred by the aggregator.

Let’s take a look at accuracy across all of the exchanges. When an exchange quotes a certain price, how often can they deliver?

Accuracy is important as it builds user trust and it demonstrates the price quoted by an aggregator is the price the end user will receive. Given enough time and samples, variance should approach 0.

As seen in the above graph, 0x API and Uniswap consistently have positive variance (i.e above 0), which indicates that there was a price movement between the quote and the on-chain settlement of the trade in the user’s favor. This is known as positive slippage. When this occurs, 0x API always transfers the positive difference to the user.

Interestingly, 1inch’s variance is always below 0, which indicates that users never receive a better rate than the quoted price, regardless of how markets move. A variance below 0 could also indicate that an aggregator is using stale information to provide quotes or their response times are not fast enough. These issues may lead to a higher chance of transactions reverting. In a reverted transaction no tokens are bought or sold, but the user still has to pay the transaction fee. We will come back to this in detail later.

Now, let’s turn our attention to costs, which in Ethereum is measured as gas used. In the graph shown below we observe that there is a large amount of variance in the amount of gas used across all of the exchanges compared in this study.

When it comes to aggregators, the old adage “less is more” applies. It is good for an aggregator to spend more if it extracts more value for the user, but as we presented earlier in the adjusted price winners graph, most aggregators are unable to do so. Optimizing the code to lower the gas usage increases the likelihood that an aggregator can split the trade over more sources to extract more value.

Uniswap is one of the cheapest exchanges in terms of gas usage, so it is a goal all aggregators should aspire for, especially for the lower value buckets. It is extremely unlikely that a $100 trade will be split over multiple exchanges, even when gas prices are 1 gwei.

On average, 0x API has an increased cost over Uniswap. However, as shown in the adjusted prices winning rate graph, despite the increased gas usage 0x API is able to extract more value for the users 7 out of 10 times. All other aggregators are at least double the cost of 0x API — which means it is double the cost for the user, with little additional value extracted. The highest gas guzzlers are 1inch and Paraswap, which is reflected in their low winning rate for adjusted prices.

To put things in perspective, below is the average cost in dollar value of all simulated trades between $500 and $1K:

• 0x API — $6.43
• 1inch — $13.58
• Dex Ag — $13.41
• Paraswap — $18.59
• Uniswap — $3.93 (we will come back to this later)

Reducing gas usage has been a focus for our team for the past eight months. Our initial target was to cut down transaction costs by 50%, however, in 0x API v1 we achieved to cut down transaction costs, on average, by ~76% vs v0. Gas usage is currently around 460K gas for a $50K trade, down from 1.5M gas for the same trade in v0. These optimizations have turned 0x API into the most efficient aggregator across all trade sizes.

In fact, gas prices have been quite higher than 100 gwei in the last month. We wanted to show you how 0x API’s adjusted price winning rate looks like in this scenario. We ran a second simulation artificially bumping gas prices and the results show that, 0x API outperform competitors in a high gas price environment too — offering better adjusted prices 8 out of 10 times when gas prices are above 400 gwei.

Now, back to 0x API’s gas usage in comparison to Uniswap. On average, 0x API uses more gas than Uniswap and yet, 0x API offers better adjusted prices than Uniswap 7 out of 10 times. How is this possible? At 0x Labs we built a super optimized contract that allows 0x API to source liquidity that is 100% routed through Uniswap in a more gas efficient way than the default Uniswap contracts. This is particularly beneficial for smaller trades (<$5K), which are typically routed to a single source.

To exemplify this, let’s take a look at the following two transactions:

The first transaction (left) shows an ETH<>UNI trade made by going directly to Uniswap. The second transaction (right) shows an equivalent ETH<>UNI trade being 100% routed to Uniswap via 0x API. As shown in the “gas used by transaction” field, the Uniswap transaction cost ~114K gas and the 0x API transaction cost ~110K gas, that is 3.7% cheaper. Certain on-chain state and conditions can change the results (for example, if the user needs to set new allowances), but in general, using 0x API to trade on Uniswap is now as cheap and often cheaper than going to Uniswap directly.

So far we’ve covered accuracy and gas usage, so it’s time to talk reverts. When a user makes a trade through one of these exchanges, what is the likelihood of the transaction failing?

Aggregators should aim to keep revert rates as low as possible as it is a frustrating experience when a transaction fails and the user still pays for gas. Common causes for reverts are: changes in the market between the time of quote and on-chain settlement, and inaccuracy of quoted prices (especially when using stale information to provide quotes).

Our simulation tool always executes swaps under perfect conditions, that is: fully funded, unlimited gas and no front-running (i.e. no information is leaked to the dark forest). We exclude reverts caused by these reasons as well as those that in real life can occur due to user behavior. As a result, simulated revert rates are lower than real world revert rates for all the exchanges, but nevertheless, they provide valuable insights into the exchanges’ performance.

In the graph above the 0–10 seconds delay bucket is particularly interesting to look at. A delay below 10s essentially means that the trade executed immediately or in the very next block after the transaction was submitted. A high revert rate in this delay bucket reflects inaccurate quoting.

In general, we observe that Paraswap’s revert rates are the highest in comparison to the other exchanges, followed by Dex Ag and 1inch. One possible explanation for reverts in a simulated environment where human behavior is not a cause for reverts, is that the price they quoted is gone (as seen in higher delay buckets) or never existed (as seen in lower delay buckets). If you recall, Dex Ag and Paraswap had the most inconsistent accuracy ratio.

Let’s explore the impact of revert rates for an end user. If a user makes 100 trades between $500 and $1K on each exchange, they would spend on failed transactions the following average amounts:

• 0x API — $6.89
• 1inch — $62.52
• Dex Ag — $3.47
• Paraswap — $119.22
• Uniswap — $0.21

In the real world we have seen Uniswap’s daily revert rate up to 30%, whereas in our simulation the highest revert rate we observed for it was ~1.3% for the longer delay buckets. The difference between realized and simulated revert rates speaks to a huge opportunity to improve the UX in all DEXs, but that’s a subject for a different discussion.

In the case of 0x API, the simulation shows we have, on average, the lowest simulated revert rates among aggregators across all the different delays. 0x API simulated reverts range between 0.6% for the shorter delays and 1.8% for the longer ones. In the real world, we have observed that the average weekly revert rate is typically between ~3% and 4% for a 0x API integrator like Matcha.

Now, there’s one important metric we haven’t covered yet: response times. This metric might not be immediately obvious to end users of an application like Matcha. However, when you are building a product on top of third-party infrastructure, you need the service to be as reliable and fast possible. Aggregators that are faster allow a user to get their trades in quicker, resulting in lower slippage and reduced chance of reverts. Not to mention the improved user experience.

There’s a technical challenge to maintaining low response times when we have to sample from more than 13 sources, including RFQ, a system where professional market makers provide liquidity. However, our goal is for 0x API to become the best professional grade liquidity aggregation API and offer response times around 1.5s is something we are proud of.

1inch‘s response times are the highest from all the exchanges analyzed, 2.7X times higher than 0x API’s response times. At 4s, 1inch’s response times are about one third the time it takes to mine a new block, which can make or break a time-sensitive swap — for example, in high volatility days when market conditions are in flux.

Given all of the information above, what is a simple summary of the best aggregator to choose? We can formulate the expected value of gains from switching from one exchange to another by calculating the average gain or loss from the switch across a wide range of trade scenarios. This will give an indication of the benefit a user can expect.

For users choosing to trade with a 0x API integrator like Matcha instead of one of the other exchanges, the average expected gains for a trade under $10K are:

• 1inch — $7.17
• Dex Ag — $10.36
• Paraswap — $14.89
• Uniswap —$17.14

Overall, a user trading on 1inch that switches over to a 0x API integrator like Matcha will observe, on average, an expected gain of $7.17 per trade. If they switch over from Uniswap, the average expected gain increases to $17.14 per trade.

Closing thoughts

First of all, we are glad you found this interesting and made it all the way here!

Our goal is to share what we have learned building 0x API and shine a light on key differences between aggregators that might not be obvious at first sight. As we mentioned earlier, we want to bring more transparency to the industry and open up the conversation about how to objectively measure and compare the performance of different aggregators so that DeFi developers and traders can make informed decisions.

By opening up our data, we hope to move the DEX aggregation space forward and continue building what is best for DeFi developers and users.

We know this is a lot of information to take in and that there will likely be a lot of questions, so we are hosting a Reddit AMA on Wednesday October 7th at 12pm PT.

If you are a trader, go to Matcha and start saving on your trades today!

If you are a DeFi developer looking to source liquidity across DEXs, you can find our v1 announcement here and the 0x API docs here. If you are an existing integrator using v0, the migration process to v1 is quite simple. We wrote this guide just in case.

For media inquiries, please email clay@0xproject.com.

Massive thanks to Ben, Jacob, Kroeger, Lawrence and Michael for their invaluable contributions and feedback on this piece.

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TL;DR

• 7 out of 10 times 0x API offers better adjusted prices than 1inch, Dex Ag, Paraswap and Uniswap. That is, the price after transaction fees are paid.
• 0x API v1 delivers market-leading gas efficiency. With a custom, highly-optimized architecture, accessing Uniswap’s liquidity through 0x API is now as cheap and often cheaper than going to Uniswap directly.
• DeFi developers can find the 0x API docs here. Existing integrators can use this guide to migrate to v1.
• Traders can go to Matcha — which uses 0x API under the hood — to buy and sell assets at the best price possible across all DEX liquidity sources.

In January 2020 we launched v0 of 0x API, a public tool designed to make it simple for DeFi developers to tap into all DEX liquidity in a fast and reliable way. Since launch, 0x API has processed over 29K trades that in total represent ~$550 million in trading volume.

The version 0 release represented a solid starting point, but it was clear that there was still plenty of room for improving and pushing the DEX aggregation space forward. So, we spent the last eight months gathering feedback and iterating, and today we are proud to launch a revamped 0x API v1: the highest-performing, professional-grade DEX aggregator in the industry. For 7 out of 10 trades, users get a better adjusted price through 0x API than through 1inch, DexAg, Paraswap and Uniswap.

With a simple http request, developers can fetch the best available price across 13 liquidity sources — including exclusive 0x liquidity from professional liquidity providers and proprietary AMMs, as well as 0x Mesh, Uniswap, Oasis, Kyber, Curve, Balancer, Bancor, mStable, Mooniswap, Sushiswap and Swerve. In addition to fetching prices from these liquidity sources, under the hood the /swap/quote endpoint leverages smart order routing algorithms to split orders across sources to reduce slippage and achieve the best price for a given trade.

Quoted versus Adjusted Prices

We built 0x API v1 with one goal in mind: offering the best prices after accounting for transaction costs.

These days it is not uncommon to see screenshots comparing quotes between DEX aggregators for a given trade on Twitter. The problem with this is that comparing aggregators on quoted prices is a bad business for users as often the best quoted price does not result in the best deal once transaction costs are paid. We believe that using adjusted price is a more objective metric and a better way to measure performance between aggregators as it is what the user ultimately gets in their wallet. Wait, but why?

Adjusted price is what a user receives after a transaction is completed on-chain and transaction costs (gas and fees) are paid. It can be calculated using the following formula:

adjusted_price = sold_amount_usd / ( bought_amount_usd — transaction_costs_usd )

Let’s use an example to illustrate this:

A user wants to trade 100 DAI for USDC. Aggregator #1 quotes 100 USDC with a transaction cost of $5. Using the formula above, we can determine that adjusted price = 100 / ( 100–5 ) = $1.05.

The same user checks out a second aggregator. Aggregator #2 quotes 104 USDC for the same 100 DAI, but with a transaction cost of $10. In this case, adjusted price = 100 / (104–10) = $1.06.

In this example, Aggregator 1 wins as it ultimately finds a cheaper rate for the user to convert 100 DAI to 100 USDC. While aggregator #2 initially quoted a better rate and bought more tokens, you can observe how the transaction cost impacted the adjusted price. In conclusion, spending an additional $5 to only receive an additional 4 USDC resulted in a more expensive deal for the user.

The majority of existing aggregators seem to optimize to win quoted prices and attract users, but we often see them failing at delivering the best adjusted price. By optimizing for adjusted prices and accounting for gas costs in 0x API smart order routing, 0x API offers the best adjusted prices 7 out of 10 times.

Reducing Gas Usage

Reducing gas usage has been a focus for our team for the past eight months. Our initial target was to cut down transaction costs by 50%, however, in 0x API v1 we achieved to cut down transaction costs, on average, by ~76% vs v0. Gas usage is currently around 460K gwei for a $50K trade, down from 1.5M gwei for the same trade in v0. These optimizations have turned 0x API into the most efficient aggregator across all trade sizes.

While, on average, 0x API uses more gas than Uniswap, 0x API offers better adjusted prices than Uniswap 7 out of 10 times. How is this possible? At 0x Labs we built a super optimized contract that allows 0x API to source liquidity that is 100% routed through Uniswap in a more gas efficient way than the default Uniswap contracts. This is particularly beneficial for smaller trades (<$5K), which are typically routed to a single source.

To exemplify this, let’s take a look at the following two transactions:

The first transaction (left) shows an ETH<>UNI trade made by going directly to Uniswap. The second transaction (right) shows an equivalent ETH<>UNI trade being 100% routed to Uniswap via 0x API. As shown in the “gas used by transaction” field, the Uniswap transaction cost ~114K gas and the 0x API transaction cost ~110K gas, that is 3.7% cheaper. Certain on-chain state and conditions can change the results (for example, if the user needs to set new allowances), but in general, using 0x API to trade on Uniswap is now as cheap and often cheaper than going to Uniswap directly.

What’s else is new in v1?

• Nine new liquidity sources for a total of 13, with new ones being added frequently.
• Two 0x API exclusive liquidity sources: 0x RFQT and 0x private AMM.
• The 0x protocol fee is no longer incurred for external liquidity sources, lowering transaction costs further.
• Last-minute, on-chain routing to adjust (and often improve) quotes for market movements that can occur between submission and on-chain confirmation.
• A new settlement contract that allows us have more accurate fills and gas usage lower than any other aggregator.
• Multi-hop, a new piece of logic in our smart order routing that allows us to bridge liquidity to illiquid markets.
• A super optimized contract that allows 0x API to source Uniswap in a more gas efficient way than the default Uniswap contracts.
• Support for ERC20>ETH trades.
• Support for affiliateFee, a percentage based fee integrators can add to monetize their product.
• excludedSources, a parameter that allows integrators to exclude specific sources from the routing.
• New /meta_transaction endpoints that allow integrators to remove or defer the requirement that the user must pay for gas and protocol fees with ETH. It provides a superset of the liquidity available via the /swap/quote endpoint.

Integrate with 0x API v1

Join our existing integrators like Matcha and offer your users the very best prices across all DEXs.

If you are a developer looking to integrate with the best DEX aggregator you can find our updated docs here.

If you are an existing integrator using v0, the migration process to v1 is quite simple. We wrote this guide just in case.

Read more about how v1 outperforms 1inch, Dex Ag, Paraswap and Uniswap here.

Questions or feedback about 0x API? Join the conversation in our dedicated Discord channel #0x_API-help.

🤝 Join the 0x community on…

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🛠️ Build on 0x

Get started with our dev docs⠀Contribute on GitHub

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Join us in our mission⠀Check out our open positions

We are starting the year (and the decade) with a bang! Today we are excited to introduce 0x API. We designed the 0x API to make it easy for DeFi developers like you to tap into both off-chain and on-chain DEX liquidity in a fast, reliable, and easy to use way so you can focus on what matters: your product.

With a simple GET call, you can use 0x API to fetch the best price available in the DEX ecosystem for any token. Under the hood, we aggregate liquidity from 0x Mesh and other decentralized exchange networks like Kyber, Uniswap and Oasis, and use smart order routing to find the best prices for you — saving you time and connecting you to more liquidity than any single source can provide. As we build more bridge contracts and more liquidity becomes available, the 0x API automatically upgrades without any additional work on your end.

With 0x API you can:

• Get the best rate in the DEX ecosystem for your desired swap with a simple GET call.
• Easily execute a swap in your smart contracts with a transaction constructed on your behalf.
• Contribute to and access liquidity on the 0x Mesh network through a REST API endpoint.
• Abstract away protocol fees and complete transactions on behalf of your users.
• Reduce your product development and go to market time.

Leading open finance projects including Nuo, bZx (Fulcrum), Zerion, Topo Finance, DeFi Saver, and more have already begun integrating with 0x API. Join the growing number of projects building on 0x by getting started today at 0x.org/api!

0x API Roadmap

Offering tools that make it easier for you to build and interact with the 0x protocol and the rest of the DEX ecosystem is at the core of what we do. If you are a new developer, 0x API is the easiest way to build exchange functionality into your product while you figure out product-market fit. If you are an advanced developer or have a product with traction, 0x API is the most reliable tool to offer the best prices and reach your user growth goals.

We have started working on improvements for the 0x API and, among many things, very soon you will also be able to:

• Stream price information.
• Easily monetize your product by collecting fees.
• Create an advanced trading interface.
• Submit orders to Ethereum with meta transactions.

Get Started

0x API is a superset of all other DEX protocols. Once integrated, you’ll be able to create exchange-like experiences, open margin positions, or mint new index tokens. Unlike other APIs, 0x API doesn’t require you to create an account or generate API keys. To start, simply follow our Swap Tokens with 0x API guide or jump straight into the documentation.

While the 0x Core team provides a free hosted version of the 0x API for developers to hit the ground running, the 0x API codebase is open source and anyone can run their own instance if they want to. Find everything you need here.

Start building today with 0x API at 0x.org/docs/api! 🚀

Questions or feedback about 0x API? Join the conversation in our dedicated Discord channel #0x_API-help.

🤝 Join the 0x community on…

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📨 Sign up for the latest ecosystem and developer updates

🛠️ Build on 0x

Get started with our dev docs⠀Contribute on GitHub

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Ethereum Hard Fork Constantinopla — febrero 2019

Actualización 27 de febrero de 2019

La actualización Constantinopla al protocolo de Ethereum ocurrirá en el bloque #7,280,000 — el cual, de acuerdo con la velocidad de minado actual, se espera ocurra el 28 de febrero de 2019. En preparación para la bifurcación, ese día suspenderemos los fondeos y retiros de ETH y los tokens ERC-20 en bitso.com y en nuestras apps de iOS y Android en el bloque #7,279,500 — alrededor de las 10:00am, hora del Centro de México.

Para más información, puedes leer nuestras actualizaciones previas. ¡Contáctanos si tienes alguna duda!

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Actualización 15 de enero de 2019

El esperado hard fork de Ethereum, Constantinopla, ha sido pospuesto hasta nuevo aviso debido a que se encontró una vulnerabilidad crítica en uno de los cambios que estaban programados: el EIP 1283. Una vez que se determine una nueva fecha para la bifurcación, les informaremos a través de este mismo medio.

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Bitso está comprometido con ofrecerte los mejores servicios financieros basados en cripto y que la interacción con tu dinero sea mágica. En este sentido, queremos informarte sobre la próxima bifurcación (hard fork) de Ethereum (ETH): Constantinopla.

Como parte de las actualizaciones al protocolo ya programadas, ETH experimentará una bifurcación en el bloque #7,080,000 — el cual, de acuerdo con la velocidad de minado actual, se espera ocurra el 16 de enero de 2019. En preparación para la bifurcación, deshabilitaremos los fondeos y retiros de ETH en bitso.com y en nuestras apps de iOS y Android en el bloque #7,079,500. En los próximos días actualizaremos esta publicación para darte más información sobre la fecha y hora en que esta funcionalidad será deshabilitada.

Bitso se encargará de todos los requerimientos técnicos necesarios para los usuarios que tengan un saldo de ETH en sus cuentas de Bitso al momento de la bifurcación. ¡No es necesario que realices alguna acción!

Constantinopla es la segunda fase de la actualización Metrópolis y es una parte integral de la estrategia de Ethereum a largo plazo para incrementar la capacidad de la red al mismo tiempo que disminuir el consumo de energía de la minería al migrar de Proof-of-Work (PoW) a Proof-of-Stake (PoS). Constantinopla incluye cinco propuestas de mejora al protocolo (EIP, por su nombre en inglés Ethereum Improvement Proposals) — EIP 145, EIP 1014, EIP 1052, EIP 1283 and EIP 1234 — pero uno de los cambios más significativos introducidos por este fork es la reducción de la emisión de ETH de 3 ETH por bloque a 2 ETH.

Por favor ten en cuenta que esperamos que esta bifurcación sea no-contenciosa y por lo tanto, no esperamos que produzca dos criptomonedas diferentes. Sin embargo, te recordamos que si quieres tener control total de tus ETH o tener acceso a una cadena menor en caso de que esto ocurra, puedes retirar tus ETH de tu cuenta de Bitso antes del bloque #7,079,500.

En Bitso estamos comprometidos con ofrecerte servicios financieros basados en crypto que sean amigables, rápidos, confiables y seguros de usar. ¡Contáctanos si tienes alguna duda!

Ethereum Constantinople Hard Fork — February 2019

Update February 27th, 2019

The Constantinople upgrade to the Ethereum protocol will take place on block #7,280,000 — which at current mining speed is expected to occur on February 28th, 2019. In preparation for the hard fork, that day we will pause fundings and withdrawals of ETH and ERC-20 tokens on bitso.com and our iOS and Android apps at block #7,279,500 — around 10:00am, Mexico City time.

For more information, please refer to our previous updates. Contact us if you have any questions!

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Update January 15th, 2019

The anticipated Ethereum hard fork, Constantinople, has been postponed until further notice after a critical vulnerability was found in one of the planned changed: EIP 1283. Once a new date is announced for the hard fork, we will inform your through this communication channel.

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Bitso is committed to offering you the best crypto-powered financial services and ensuring that your interaction with money is magical. To that end, we would like to inform you about the upcoming Ethereum (ETH) hard fork: Constantinople.

As part of its scheduled protocol upgrades, ETH will have a hard fork at block height #7,080,000 — which at current mining speed is expected to occur on January 16th, 2019. In preparation for the hard fork, ETH fundings and withdrawals on bitso.com and our iOS and Android apps will be paused at block #7,079,500. In the coming days we will update this post to provide you more information about the day and time when this functionality will be disabled.

Bitso will handle all technical requirements for all users with an ETH balance in their Bitso account at the time of the hard fork. No action is required from you!

Constantinople is the second phase of the Metropolis upgrade and it is integral to Ethereum’s long-term strategy to increase network capacity while decreasing energy consumption from mining by switching from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). Constantinople includes five Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) - EIP 145, EIP 1014, EIP 1052, EIP 1283 and EIP 1234 - but one of the most significant changes introduced by this hard fork is the reduction of ETH issuance from 3 ETH per block to 2 ETH.

Please note that we expect the hard fork to be non-contentious and thus we do not expect it to yield two different cryptocurrencies. However, we remind you that if you want full control of your ETH or to have access to a minor chain in case this happens, you can withdraw your ETH from your Bitso account before block #7,079,500.

At Bitso we are committed to offering you friendly, fast, reliable and safe to use crypto-powered financial services. Please contact us if you have any questions!

On November 15th, 2018, the Bitcoin Cash blockchain forked, resulting in two chains: Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV.

As previously announced here and here, Bitso determined that the Bitcoin Cash SV (BSV) chain does not meet our listing criteria; thus, this token will not be available for trading. However, by January 3rd, 2019 all eligible users will be credited their corresponding BSV tokens based on the snapshot of the Bitcoin Cash balances taken on November 15th, 2018 at 10:40 am Mexico City time.

If you had Bitcoin Cash in your Bitso account at the time of the snapshot, then you’re an eligible user. We will notify you by email once your BSV tokens are available in your account. In the meantime, here’s the information you need to know:

• BSV tokens will be credited on your account by January 3rd, 2019.
• For each Bitcoin Cash token you had in your Bitso account at the time of the snapshot, you will be credited one token of BSV.
• You will only be able to withdraw your BSV tokens in full amount to a single address.
• If you do not withdraw your BSV tokens by March 31st, 2019 they will be traded at market price on your behalf and credited to your Bitso account as Bitcoin (BTC).
• BSV fundings and trading will not be available.

We have split BCH and BSV tokens to ensure that transactions in one chain are not re-playable on the other chain.

At Bitso we are committed to offering you friendly, fast, reliable and safe-to-use crypto-powered financial services. Please contact us if you have any doubts!

El 15 de noviembre de 2018 la cadena de bloques de Bitcoin Cash tuvo una bifurcación (hard fork), lo cual resultó en dos cadenas: Bitcoin Cash ABC y Bitcoin Cash SV.

Como anunciamos anteriormente aquí y aquí, Bitso determinó que la cadena de Bitcoin Cash SV (BSV) no cumple con nuestros criterios de listado; por lo tanto, este token no estará disponible para trading. Sin embargo, a más tardar el 3 de enero de 2019 a todos los usuarios elegibles se les acreditarán sus tokens de BSV correspondientes con base en la fotografía de los balances de Bitcoin Cash tomada el 15 de noviembre de 2018 a las 10:40 am, hora del Centro de México.

Si al momento de la fotografía tenías Bitcoin Cash en Bitso entonces eres un usuario elegible. Te notificaremos por correo electrónico una vez que tus tokens de BSV estén disponibles en tu cuenta. Mientras tanto, aquí te dejamos la información que necesitas saber:

• Los tokens de BSV serán acreditados en tu cuenta a más tardar el 3 de enero de 2019.
• Por cada token de Bitcoin Cash que tenías en tu cuenta de Bitso al momento de la fotografía, se te acreditará un token de BSV.
• Sólo podrás retirar tus tokens de BSV por la cantidad total y a una única dirección.
• En caso de no retirar tus tokens de BSV antes del 31 de marzo de 2019, éstos serán intercambiados a precio de mercado y se te acreditará Bitcoin (BTC) en tu cuenta de Bitso.
• Fondeos y trading de BSV no estarán disponibles.

Hemos separado los tokens de BCH y BSV para asegurar que las transacciones en una cadena no se puedan replicar en la otra.

En Bitso estamos comprometidos con ofrecerte servicios financieros basados en cripto que sean amigables, rápidos, confiables y seguros de usar.

¡Contáctanos si tienes alguna duda!