From Institutions and Memes to the Future of DeFi

On the coronary heart of DeFi innovation, 1inch has constructed one of the vital standard decentralized change aggregators within the area.

At Paris Blockchain Week 2025, we sat down with Aleksandra “Sasha” Fetisova, Head of Enterprise Improvement at 1inch, to grasp what’s subsequent: for 1inch, DeFi, and the business, basically.

Sasha revealed the most recent upgrades, challenges within the ecosystem, and the developments she believes will reshape DeFi over the subsequent few years.

Reinventing the Swap Expertise

For these unfamiliar, 1inch doesn’t function like a conventional DEX — it’s a DEX aggregator. As an alternative of offering a standalone market, it scans lots of of decentralized exchanges to ship the absolute best charges to its customers.

Latest updates, Sasha defined, have pushed this even additional.

“We improved our swap expertise with an intent-based, cross-chain gasless resolution referred to as Fusion,” she mentioned. “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 sooner, cheaper, and safer.”

For normal customers, this implies decrease friction and decrease value, notably when shifting belongings throughout chains — a ache level that’s lengthy plagued decentralized finance.

Charges are a delicate matter in crypto, the place gasoline prices and platform cuts can quietly drain portfolios.

“Our customers might be certain they’re doing direct swaps with none added charges,” Sasha emphasised. “We’re a community-driven mission, and we don’t cost customers on our DApp or cellular pockets.”

Behind the scenes, she credit the mission’s builders for optimizing routing and sensible contracts to maintain swaps environment friendly and low-cost. However that’s not the one issue:

“We mixture liquidity from over 500 DEXs throughout 10 to 13 chains,” she mentioned. “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 function of 1inch’s method is its laser concentrate on safety.

“We’ve by no means been hacked,” Sasha said firmly. “That’s as a result of we do no less than 5 to 10 audits each time we replace or launch one thing new.”

However it’s not simply audits. She pointed to co-founder and CTO Anton Bukov’s philosophy of writing minimal, extremely environment friendly sensible contracts.

“As an alternative of making bloated, advanced code, Anton spends hours considering after which writes a small, practical piece of code — one thing that may be audited shortly and runs effectively,” she defined. “It’s a really intentional design.”

Going International: From Decentralized Group to Dubai Hub

Though 1inch was born through the remote-work explosion of COVID, the group lately opened its first bodily workplace in Dubai.

“We see the IMEA area as very fruitful, particularly underneath present market situations,” Sasha shared. “If our neighborhood is touring to Dubai, we’re comfortable 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 developments shaping DeFi.

“Within the subsequent cycle, we’ll see extra establishments coming 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 lots of new customers, however a lot of them obtained wrecked,” she mentioned. “I’d like to see some type of training or perhaps even system notifications warning those that 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 mentioned, laughing. “We’re going to see extra actual property tokenization, hedge fund tokenization… These are the developments that would carry the primary billion customers into crypto.”

And what about onboarding these billions?

“We’d like 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 perhaps 100 individuals a day; an AI agent will help 1000’s, 24/7.”

In direction of the tip of April, 1inch had a significant announcement: its growth 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.”