1inch vs instant exchanges

How does each model complete a swap?

An instant exchange works like a conversion counter. The names differ per service, but both describe the same four steps:

1. 1

   Pick a pair and a payout address

   You choose what to send and what to receive, and name the address where the result should arrive.

2. 2

   Send coins to a one-time deposit address

   The service generates a deposit address it controls; the exchange starts once your transfer confirms.

3. 3

   The service converts the coins

   Conversion runs through the service's partner venues at a floating or a fixed quote.

4. 4

   The payout lands at your address

   The converted amount, with costs already inside the quote, arrives at the address you named.

A swap on 1inch has no deposit step. You connect a wallet, the protocol aggregates a quote from on-chain liquidity and shows the network fee and the minimum you will receive. You sign one transaction, and it settles on-chain atomically: if your terms cannot be met, it reverts and the tokens stay in your wallet.

Who holds your coins during the exchange?

SimpleSwap and ChangeNOW both state they keep no customer balances: coins arrive, convert and leave, which is why the services describe themselves as non-custodial. The deposit window is the exception, and it is structural: for the duration of the conversion, your coins sit at an address only the service controls. Their own how-it-works pages describe exactly this flow.

1inch never reaches that point. There is no deposit address: tokens move out of your wallet only inside the swap transaction you signed, on the terms encoded in it. 1inch routes the swap and takes custody of nothing. The difference is not cosmetic: it decides who you depend on mid-swap, what a failure looks like and who can put it right afterwards.

Where does the rate come from?

ChangeNOW's FAQ says it selects quotes from the trading platforms it integrates, naming Binance, Bitfinex, HTX, OKEx and KuCoin. SimpleSwap's FAQ describes aggregating liquidity from 20+ CEX and DEX providers. Either way you pick between a floating quote, which can change between the estimate and your deposit confirming, and a fixed quote that locks the payout. The lock is priced: ChangeNOW's guide puts the fixed-rate reserve at roughly 0.5% to 1% above the market rate.

On 1inch the quote is aggregated from on-chain liquidity at the moment you swap: competitive rates, aggregated across 300+ sources, with the minimum received shown before you sign. The quote refreshes with the market until you sign, so what you approve reflects the current state of the pools, not an estimate from minutes ago. On intent-based swaps, resolvers compete to fill the order, pay the settlement gas and keep the transaction away from MEV bots.

What do you pay with each model?

Both models fold most costs into the quoted rate; what differs is where the costs come from and what you can verify before committing.

With an instant exchange service:

Rate margin

Inside the quoted rate; a fixed quote adds a reserve premium of roughly 0.5% to 1%, per ChangeNOW's guide

Network fees

Folded into the quote or estimate; both services state they add no separate fee line

Deposit transfer

You pay the network fee for sending coins to the deposit address

Swapping with 1inch:

Rate margin

The quote reflects on-chain prices and the route's pool fees, compared across sources

Network fees

Shown before you sign; on intent-based swaps the resolver pays the settlement gas

Deposit transfer

None. There is no deposit step to fund

The honest summary: an instant exchange prices its convenience into the rate, and an on-chain aggregated swap shows its costs before you sign. Which weighs more depends on the pair, the chains involved and how much verification you want before committing.

Which model is faster?

Usually neither by much, and both depend on the chains involved. An instant exchange waits for your deposit to confirm, runs the conversion and sends the payout, which ChangeNOW's site describes as a few minutes for most orders. A 1inch swap is one on-chain transaction, so it settles at the pace of the network it runs on, seconds on fast chains and longer under congestion.

Fixed quotes add a clock of their own: the deposit must arrive within the service's window, about 20 minutes on SimpleSwap per its FAQ, or the exchange is repriced. Congestion moves both models the same way, because both wait on the same block space.

When does an instant exchange service fit?

• The asset has no on-chain market you can reach, so a conversion service is the practical route
• You are converting across chains without wallets, gas or tooling set up on both sides
• Coverage outweighs rate: SimpleSwap lists 2,800+ currencies and ChangeNOW 900+, per their sites
• You prefer one send and one receive over wallet connections and transaction signing

None of these cases requires blind trust: both services publish their flows, rate models and support procedures, and that public documentation is where every claim in this comparison comes from.

When does 1inch fit?

• You hold tokens in your own wallet and intend to keep custody through the swap
• The pair trades on-chain, where aggregation can compare hundreds of sources for one quote
• You want MEV protection and no separate gas payment, available on intent-based swaps
• You are swapping across supported networks in one flow, without manual bridging
• You want the quote and the settlement to be one signed object, with nothing to track in between

Moving between networks is covered step by step in the cross-chain swaps guide.

And the bot risk that private routing removes is explained in the MEV protection guide.