Founded in 2019, 1inch aggregates liquidity (i.e., trading volume) from numerous decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and automatically offers users the best available price for their token swaps—fast, efficient, and fully decentralized.

Breaking out of the Nerd Niche

Now, the leading decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem has undergone a rebrand, presenting its new visual and messaging identity at Token2049, along with a new address: 1inch.com. The refresh is meant to reflect the project’s growth and evolution. The focus now lies in integrating DeFi with traditional finance (TradFi) and building bridges to legacy financial systems.

With what the company calls a «radically simplified design,» clearer interfaces, and streamlined products, 1inch aims to make DeFi more intuitive and accessible—for both everyday users and institutional partners. The new slogan captures this direction: «We move forward as 1.»

At the summit, which drew 24,000 Web3 enthusiasts from around the world, co-founder Sergej Kunz (who deliberately avoids the CEO title) explained: «Soon, DeFi will be indistinguishable from traditional finance—but that doesn't mean centralization. It means traditional systems and users are coming on-chain. 1inch’s rebrand signals maturity—not a change in mission.»

Bruce Lee as Inspiration

The expansion of 1inch’s SaaS-based model has led to widespread integration of its non-custodial technology across the industry. Major players like Binance, Coinbase, Ledger, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and others now rely on 1inch’s technology to power their swaps.

The name «1inch» was inspired by Bruce Lee’s legendary «one-inch punch»—a movement defined by precision, coordination, and efficiency. That same philosophy underpinned 1inch’s early vision: connecting fragmented liquidity sources with maximum efficiency to deliver the best possible swap rates for users.

Big Announcements at the Crypto Bazar

Token2049 in Singapore was not just about rebranding. A wave of new product show-offs also made headlines over the two-day event.

• Hypersurface, a new DeFi project, announced the launch of its protocol on HyperEVM, bringing one of traditional finance’s most popular yield strategies—covered calls—fully on-chain and accessible to all crypto users.
  In traditional markets, covered calls account for billions in monthly volume, but in crypto, they’ve mostly been confined to OTC desks and are out of reach for most users.
  Hypersurface aims to close that gap, enabling investors to earn higher yields on Ethereum, Bitcoin, HYPE, and other tokens they already hold.
• With the launch of XAUt0 on Celo, tokenized gold is now available on the platform for the first time. This omnichain version of Tether Gold complements Celo’s existing offering of USDT, which has already been used by millions. Users in over 150 countries now have easy access to one of the oldest stores of value, directly on an Ethereum Layer 2 network.
• The Celo Foundation also announced the launch of Nightfall, an open-source zero-knowledge privacy solution developed by EY. As a Layer 3 on the Celo network, Nightfall enables low-cost, private, and auditable transactions across multiple token standards.
  This marks the first time the technology is being used in a payments-focused blockchain setting, extending Celo’s capabilities to B2B transactions—a market projected to exceed $180 trillion in cross-border flows.