Decentralized-exchange aggregator 1inch has introduced Aqua, a new liquidity protocol that, the team says, could improve how capital moves through decentralized finance.
The new protocol, announced on Monday at Devconnect in Argentina, opens early access to Aqua’s software development kit, libraries and documentation — giving developers the ability to test, integrate, and shape what 1inch claims is the first shared liquidity engine in DeFi.
Devconnect — a gathering of developers, researchers, and protocol teams — has long been a venue for unveiling technical advances primarily focused on the Ethereum ecosystem. Against that backdrop, 1inch framed Aqua as a crucial liquidity primitive built to tackle capital fragmentation issues that have historically constrained the largest DeFi ecosystem.
1inch argues that today’s liquidity landscape forces protocols to compete for user deposits, forcing liquidity providers to choose between single-strategy pools and locked positions that limit opportunity cost. Aqua’s shared-liquidity model aims to reverse that logic, offering broader ecosystem liquidity, unrestricted self-custody, and a design that composes easily across chains and protocols.
For developers, Aqua removes deposit and withdrawal logic entirely. Applications query balances rather than manage funds, letting builders focus on strategy design rather than pool mechanics. For end users, the model promises capital efficiency without surrendering custody.
“Aqua solves liquidity fragmentation by multiplying effective capital,” co-founder Anton Bukov said. Fellow co-founder Sergej Kunz added that Aqua is intended as a foundational layer for capital-efficient DeFi, mirroring the team’s 2019 work on aggregation.
Instead of users depositing, splitting, or locking capital inside various pools, Aqua turns each wallet into a self-custodial Automated Market Maker. This way, strategies can pull and return liquidity atomically under predefined rules, the team stated. 1inch said this design creates a multiplier effect, as the same capital can be applied to multiple approaches without being siloed — doubling or even tripling effective liquidity, depending on the setup.
Additionally, the developer release enables builders to either create strategies from scratch or use the SwapVM instruction library to assemble new channels. 1inch is also offering bounties of up to $100,000 for contributions, bug discovery, and performance improvements.
Infrastructure expansion
1inch operates one of the largest DeFi ecosystems, known primarily for its DEX aggregation engine, which facilitates low-cost token swaps for more than 26 million users and processes over $500 million in daily trading volume. Beyond aggregation, the company offers a self-custodial wallet, portfolio tools, business routing infrastructure, and integrations across major EVM and non-EVM networks.
Aqua's release follows a series of integrations and feature rollouts across 1inch’s stack. Earlier this year, Coinbase integrated 1inch’s API to improve swap execution in its flagship retail app. The project also introduced native cross-chain swaps between Solana and EVM networks, aiming to reduce friction for multichain movement.
Before that, 1inch launched an upgraded Pathfinder routing algorithm to deliver improved swap rates across hundreds of pools and liquidity sources. Those updates have helped cement 1inch’s position as the second-largest DEX aggregator on Ethereum by market share, according to The Block’s data.
