Decentralized exchanges make it easy to exchange one token for another while staying in control of your funds, by using smart contracts to coordinate the trade. Sending onchain transactions costs gas, so there will always be a small network fee to pay, but many exchanges add other fees on top, without giving you anything in return.

On Matcha, you can trade crypto for free and only pay the gas cost. There are no added fees, and you still get the best price through smart order routing, a technology that finds the most efficient path for your trade across hundreds of exchanges. 

How to swap crypto for free 

To make fee-free trades, just click on the settings icon (shaped like a gear ⚙ ) and turn off Matcha Auto. You can then fine-tune your trade settings according to network cost (gas), slippage, and liquidity sources used. 

As you’ll see at the bottom of the menu, fees are 0%, which applies to any trade you make with Matcha Auto off. Since the gas cost of a transaction does not change when trading larger amounts, you can minimize the amount you spend by trading larger volumes at once.

It is important to note that although there are no fees, your trade may be susceptible to MEV or experience slippage, which can end up costing you much more. For MEV protection and minimal slippage, you may actually save money by using Matcha Auto for a cost of just 0.25% (or 0.05% for stablecoin-to-stablecoin trades), one of the lowest fees in the industry. 

Other features Matcha provides without charging fees include:

• Limit Orders, which have no maker fee and cost no gas to create
• Cross Chain Swaps, which let you bridge from one token to another across networks

What are network fees?

Network fees are a cost that is set by the network you are using. Networks like Ethereum charge a small amount of Ether as gas on every transaction, to keep the blockchain safe from spam and other attacks. 

Gas fees can be set by you as a user of the network, but the amount needed for a transaction to be successfully processed varies depending on market factors. If the network is busy, gas fees will increase organically as transactors bid increasingly higher amounts for their transaction to be processed. Fees are lower during quiet periods. 

Even if you disable Matcha Auto, you can still use the suggested gas settings to ensure you are not overpaying and without worrying that your transaction will get stuck. You can also check recommended gas settings using a third-party tool.

Slippage settings

Price changes between blocks can mean that an order you place ends up below the market price by the time it gets executed. Slippage settings allow you to specify an acceptable price change which you would be willing to pay in order to complete your trade. 

High-volatility tokens can change by several percentage points in seconds, while more established cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Bitcoin, and stablecoins are unlikely to see much price change between blocks. MEV can also have an effect, pushing the price you pay up to your slippage limit.

You can adjust slippage manually for each trade to stay within a range that’s comfortable for you. If the price moves by more than your slippage threshold, the trade will be reverted. If that sounds like too much work, you can use Matcha Auto to get the price you’re quoted every time. 

Why pay for MEV protection?

Blockchain transactions are usually sent through public mempools where everyone connected to the network can see your trade before it completes. This gives a short window of opportunity for other participants including bots to capitalize on your trade by placing transactions before or after yours, or both in what’s known as a sandwich attack. 

This phenomenon is referred to as maximal extractable value (MEV), and it can cause you to get a significantly worse price for your trade, especially for large volume trades or when trading volatile tokens which have less liquidity available. In many cases, it can mean thousands of dollars lost in a single transaction. 

MEV protection is a feature which prevents MEV by using private mempools, which only certain market makers are granted access to. This ensures that you never get sandwiched and comes with added benefits like quicker execution, and no slippage, both of which can save you money - often far more than the cost itself.

Choosing a liquidity source manually

Most liquidity in onchain trading is managed by DEXs using Automated Market Makers (AMMs). These are smart contracts which manage liquidity pools by balancing the amount of one asset in relation to another. In most trading scenarios, you will want to enable all available liquidity sources on any given chain. 

Matcha’s smart order routing (SOR) fetches the best available price by sampling multiple AMMs to find liquidity pools with plenty of token supply, and then calculates a trade route that results in the lowest price impact for you.

One exception to this is 0x RFQ, a liquidity source that aggregates quotes from Private Market Makers (PMMs) in much the same way Matcha Auto does. By limiting your liquidity source to RFQ only, your trades will be offered to PMMs who will quote a price they are willing to exchange at. 

The benefit of RFQ is that it provides MEV protection and zero slippage while also being more gas efficient than an AMM swap, but a PMM may not be able to offer the best possible price for smaller trade amounts. For that reason, using RFQ on its own is not always the best choice, and Matcha Auto will often perform better, while also letting you trade without gas.

You’re always in control

Whether you want to manage every detail of your trade or just want the best price without worrying about gas, slippage, or MEV, you’re always in control with Matcha. 

Advanced traders will find the greatest benefit from fee-free trades, but in most cases will need to ensure they are mitigating MEV through RFQ or a similar solution. 

For the average trader, Matcha Auto will provide the best value with one of the lowest trading fees on the market. While DEXs like Uniswap charge the same, they offer nothing in return. Matcha Auto will save you money you would otherwise lose to slippage, and can result in even larger savings over time by preventing MEV entirely.

By making it free to trade without centralized parties, Matcha ensures that the core thesis of decentralization remains viable, with liquidity that can be accessed by anyone in the world, unlocking a universe of tokenized value that flows onchain. Use Matcha today for the best prices, without compromise.