What do you need before you swap?
You need three things before your first swap. Each one takes a few minutes to set up, and all of them stay useful long after.
- A self-custody wallet, such as 1inch Wallet, MetaMask or any WalletConnect-compatible app. You approve every swap from it, and nobody else can move your tokens.
- A little of the network's native token for gas. On Ethereum and its layer 2 networks that means ETH. Gas pays the validators who confirm your transaction.
- The token you want to trade away. If you hold nothing on-chain yet, buy a starter amount through an exchange or an on-ramp and withdraw it to your own address.
If any of this feels unfamiliar, read what a crypto swap is first. It explains what actually happens on-chain when you trade one token for another.
How do you swap crypto on 1inch?
- 1
Connect your wallet
Go to the swap form, press 'Connect wallet' and approve the connection in your wallet app. Connecting is free and moves no tokens. There is no account to open and no deposit to make.
- 2
Choose the pair and the network
Pick the token you pay with and the token you want to receive. 1inch supports swaps across 13+ networks, so check that the selected network is the one where your tokens actually live.
- 3
Enter the amount and review the quote
The aggregation protocol compares prices across hundreds of liquidity sources and can split your swap across several of them. The result is competitive rates, aggregated across 300+ sources. Check the rate, the network fee and the minimum received before you continue.
- 4
Approve the token on its first swap
ERC-20 tokens need a one-time approval before a contract can move them on your behalf. It is a separate, small transaction, and you can cap it at exactly the amount you are swapping. Later swaps of the same token skip this step.
- 5
Confirm the swap in your wallet
Your wallet shows the final terms. Check the amounts and the fee once more, then sign. A confirmed swap settles on-chain and cannot be reversed, so this is the moment to be sure.
- 6
Verify what you received
The destination token appears in your wallet once the transaction confirms, within seconds on most layer 2 networks. You can follow the transaction on a block explorer such as Etherscan using the hash from your wallet's history.
How do you read a swap quote?
Four numbers on the quote decide whether a swap is worth confirming. They move together, so read them as a set.
- Rate
- How much of the destination token you get per unit of the token you pay with. It reflects live liquidity and moves with the market.
- Minimum received
- The floor your swap is allowed to settle at. If the market moves past it, the transaction reverts instead of filling at a worse rate.
- Network fee
- The gas estimate for the transaction. It goes to the network's validators, not to 1inch.
- Price impact
- How much your own order moves the price. Large swaps in shallow markets push the rate against you, sometimes by more than any fee.
The setting first-time swappers most often get wrong is slippage tolerance, the gap you accept between the quoted and the settled rate. Read how slippage works before you touch the default.
What does a swap cost?
On 1inch you pay the network gas fee for the transaction, and the rate itself reflects current liquidity. A typical swap on Ethereum mainnet consumes about 180,000 gas, which came to roughly $0.21 at the mid-2026 average of 0.5 gwei, according to ethereum.org. A first-time token approval adds about 46,000 gas on top.
Layer 2 networks are cheaper again. Rollups such as Arbitrum and Base now carry about 95% of Ethereum's transactions and keep a typical swap in the cents. Fees on every network rise when blockspace gets busy, so it pays to know how gas fees form and how to pay less.
How do you keep a swap safe?
- Verify the token's contract address, never just its name. Anyone can create a token with a familiar ticker. Select from the verified list, or paste the address from the project's official site.
- Leave slippage tolerance at the default unless you have a specific reason to widen it. A loose tolerance hands the difference to bots.
- Turn on MEV protection for larger swaps, so your pending transaction is not visible in the public mempool while it waits.
- Review your token approvals occasionally and revoke the ones you no longer use. Old, unlimited approvals are a standing risk.
The mempool threat is measurable. EigenPhi data reported by Cointelegraph counted 60,000 to 90,000 sandwich attacks per month on Ethereum between November 2024 and October 2025, costing traders about $60 million a year. MEV protection explains the attack and the defense in plain terms.
Which network should you swap on?
Usually the one your tokens already live on. When they sit on two different chains, cross-chain swaps combine the bridge and the swap into one flow across 13+ networks, so you do not have to move assets by hand first. When both tokens share a chain, a regular swap is simpler and cheaper.
New networks keep joining. Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum layer 2 that opened its public mainnet in July 2026, is already available for swaps on 1inch. For the deeper mechanics that make trustless cross-chain trades possible, atomic swaps are where to look.
Where else can you swap, and how does 1inch compare?
You can swap on a centralized exchange, on a single DEX, through an instant exchange service or through an aggregator. Custody separates them: on 1inch you sign from your own wallet, while an exchange account means the company holds your assets until you withdraw. DEX vs CEX walks through that trade-off in detail.
Under the hood, 1inch routes each swap through decentralized exchanges and other on-chain liquidity. What a DEX aggregator does explains why one query across hundreds of sources beats checking venues one at a time.
For the wider map, the best ways to swap crypto guide weighs every method side by side, and 1inch vs instant exchanges contrasts the custody models directly. Every guide in this series lives on the Learn hub.
Common questions about swapping
No. You connect a wallet and sign each swap yourself. There is no deposit and no withdrawal step, because your tokens never sit anywhere except your own address.
One transaction's worth of time on the network you use. Most layer 2 networks confirm in a second or two. Ethereum mainnet produces a block about every 12 seconds, and wallets typically show the result within a minute.
You can back out at any point before signing by closing the wallet prompt. After the transaction is sent, it either fills or reverts. If it sits pending because gas spiked, most wallets let you replace or cancel it with a follow-up transaction.
A failed swap means the transaction reverted, most often because the market moved past your slippage tolerance. Your tokens stay in your wallet. You lose only the gas the network consumed before the revert, and you can request a fresh quote right away.
Ready for your first swap?
Competitive rates, aggregated across 300+ sources, signed from a wallet you control.
