Introducing MetaMask Swaps
By: Talia Knowles-Rivas
Tags: Web3, Cryptocurrency, Metamask, Defi, Ethereum

MetaMask users can now swap tokens directly from their wallet. Swaps combines data from multiple decentralized exchange aggregators, professional market makers, and individual DEXs — like AirSwap — to ensure MetaMask users always get the best price with the lowest network fees.

Recent months have seen large-scale adoption of decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Compared to centralized exchanges, DEXs offer more pairs when trading, provide access to a greater diversity of tokens, and enable non-custodial swaps that keep funds safer. However, users of decentralized exchanges often don’t receive the best price when insufficient liquidity is available or if a particular decentralized exchange doesn’t have the best available price.

Before MetaMask Swaps, users would navigate many DEXs to compare prices and swap tokens. However, using a single DEX or DEX aggregator doesn’t always yield the best price for every trade, as each aggregator performs differently under different circumstances. Additionally, users needed to approve each token on each DEX, incurring expensive gas costs.

We knew if we could solve these problems, we could remove friction for millions of users, democratize access to Web3 and DeFi and increase the efficiency of these systems. That’s why we’ve collaborated with the AirSwap team at ConsenSys to build Swaps: a feature that enables any Web3 or DeFi user to easily access the tokens they need for the sites they use. By integrating data from the largest liquidity sources in the ecosystem — including Uniswap, AirSwap, 0x API, 1inch.exchange, Paraswap, Totle, and dex.ag — MetaMask Swaps lets users access all decentralized liquidity sources in one place.

With a focus on user experience we’ve also prioritized security. The underlying smart contracts have been audited by ConsenSys Diligence and a report can be found here.

Compare Prices and Swap Directly From MetaMask

Find the best price every time. By requesting prices from all available aggregators, along with individual market makers, Swaps ensures that every MetaMask user always has access to the largest selection of tokens, and the most competitive prices. A service fee of 0.875% is automatically factored into each quote, which supports ongoing development to make MetaMask even better.

Fewer approvals. No need to approve every token on multiple DEXes and aggregators for each trade. With Swaps, users only need to approve each token once, reducing gas costs and shortening the path to executing their token swap.

Reduced gas costs. Each aggregator pursues a different path to locate the best trade. Each route requires a varying amount of gas fees to execute the transaction. Swaps sources the best prices and determines which aggregator is the most gas efficient for every trade.

Slippage protection. Large swaps are often subject to wild price swings when there is insufficient liquidity available on a particular DEX. When swapping in MetaMask, orders are spread across virtually all DEXs to reduce slippage impact on the final price.

Swaps is available now in the Chrome and Firefox extensions, rolling out shortly to other browsers and coming soon to MetaMask Mobile.

Getting Started

Open the MetaMask extension Click the new ‘Swap’ button Select the tokens you want to swap and click ‘Get quotes’ Let MetaMask work it’s magic Compare all available quotes and select the best one Click on ‘Swap’ and wait until the transaction completes

A Better DeFi Experience for the Ethereum Ecosystem

By building a single end-to-end experience, MetaMask empowers Web3 users to browse and interact with the entire decentralized web.

A simple, streamlined experience reduces friction for new token users, bringing more people into DeFi. It enables more trades, faster, by providing an optimized path for fees. And, crucially, bringing greater transparency and efficiency to decentralized finance on Ethereum. This equates to a better network for all — one with fewer fees and reduced network congestion.

If you’re a Chrome or Firefox user, jump into your MetaMask extension and start swapping now!

New to Web3? Welcome! Head to metamask.io to download the MetaMask browser client and start interacting with the blockchain-based internet.