Looking back on 5 years of innovation: 1inch in 2021

This series of posts follows each year of 1inch’s journey to becoming a leading player in the Web3 space. In this third post, we explore 2021 — a year notable for key partnerships and the evolution of the 1inch dApp into an ecosystem of cutting-edge products.

Building on significant updates from the previous year, 2021 brought an even greater wave of enhancements to the 1inch dApp. First, 1inch expanded from being deployed solely on Ethereum to covering four more chains: BNB Chain, Polygon, Optimism and Arbitrum.

Our flagship piece of technology, the 1inch Aggregation Protocol, saw two major upgrades: to V3 in March and to V4 in November, resulting in lower gas fees, better swap rates and increased liquidity.

In June, 1inch launched a unique limit order protocol, enabling users to set specific prices for their swaps rather than relying on the current market price. The 1inch Limit Order Protocol allowed traders to establish rates and time limits for exchanging crypto assets, with transactions executed if the market reached the specified price within the set time limit.

By December, the protocol had evolved to V2, introducing gasless limit orders for ETH and RFQ swaps. This upgrade enabled users to place a limit order and exchange any token that supports permits for ETH, even with a zero ETH balance. This siginficantly simplified the process of placing a limit order on any dApp.

In July, 1inch introduced Simple mode for its dApp, featuring an intuitive swap interface that provided traders with an exceptional ease of use.

In April 2021, 1inch released the 1inch Wallet for iOS, introducing multiple innovative features. This wallet included capabilities from the dApp version, along with mobile wallet functionalities like push notifications and WalletConnect support. It also boasted a standout feature — payment requests, enabling users to pay via URLs.

Security was a key focus for the 1inch Wallet, highlighted by the encrypted backup to Apple iCloud. This allowed users to install the app on another device and, using their password, access the wallet via iCloud. The backup offered three-level protection, including Face ID, Apple ID and a pass phrase. Additionally, the wallet leveraged Secure Enclave to encrypt user data that never leaves their devices.

From its introduction, the 1inch Wallet allowed users to approve and confirm transactions on Apple Watch and featured fast transaction signing, a highly appreciated aspect by users.

2021 was an exciting year for 1inch in many respects, marked by numerous collaborations and integrations. We partnered with Mercuryo, Bitquery, BitPay, Hashflow and even the animated series “Take My Muffin.” Additionally, 1inch integrated with Trust Wallet, the Oasis app, Dharma and many others. Another significant integration was with Ledger Live, enabling users to exchange crypto while enjoying the security of their hardware wallets.

The milestones of 2021 showed remarkable results for 1inch. The project closed a $175 mln Series B round led by Amber Group, Jane Street and VanEck, with participation from 50 investors. Meanwhile, the total trading volume reached $110 bln, and the number of wallets surpassed 1 mln.

Stay tuned for another chapter of the 1inch story!