In the heart of Defi Innovation, 1inch has built one of the most popular decentralized exchange aggregators in the room.
In Paris Blockchain Week 2025 we sat down with Aleksandra “Sasha” Fetisova, head of business development on 1 inch, to understand what the next step is: for 1 inch, Defi and the industry in general.
Sasha revealed the latest upgrades, challenges in the ecosystem and the trends she believes will reform the Defi in the coming years.
Reinvent the Swap experience
For those who are unknown, 1 inch does not work as a traditional dex – it is a Dex aggregator. Instead of offering a stand -alone market, the hundreds of decentralized exchanges scans to deliver the best possible rates to its users.
Recent updates, Sasha explained, have pushed this even further.
“We have improved our SWAP experience with a intention-based, cross-chain-gasless solution called Fusion,” she said. “It is interoperable about EVM chains, does not rely on third-party bridges and is protected against MEV [maximum extractable value] to attack. The point is to make Swaps faster, cheaper and safer. “
For regular users, this means lower friction and lower costs, especially when moving assets about chains – a pain that is long -standing decentralized financing.
Costs are a sensitive subject in crypto, where gas costs and platform reductions can quietly drain portfolios.
“Our users can be sure that they do direct swaps without extra costs,” Sasha emphasized. “We are a community -driven project and we do not charge users on our Dapp or mobile wallet.”
Behind the scenes, she credits the developers of the project to optimize routing and smart contracts to keep Swaps efficient and cheap. But that is not the only factor:
“We collect liquidity of more than 500 DEXs over 10 to 13 chains,” she said. “Plus, in merger mode we work with professional market makers – resolvers – who draw liquidity, not only from decentralized sources, but also from centralized exchanges.”
Security by minimalism
A characteristic of the approach of 1inch is the laser focus on security.
“We have never been hacked,” Sasha said firmly. “That’s because we do at least five to ten audits every time we update or launch something new.”
But it’s not just audits. She pointed to co-founder and CTO Anton Bukov’s philosophy to write minimal, very efficient smart contracts.
“Instead of bloating, making complex code, Anton spends hours of thinking and then writes a small, functional piece of code – something that can be checked quickly and can be performed efficiently,” she explained. “It’s a very deliberate design.”
Going worldwide: from decentralized team to Dubai Hub
Although 1 inch was born during the remote explosion of Covid, the team recently opened its first physical office in Dubai.
“We see the IMEA region as very fertile, especially under the current market conditions,” Sasha shared. “If our community travels to Dubai, we are happy to show them around!”
She hinted that Dubai’s choice corresponds to favorable conditions for crypto innovation.
Looking beyond the direct route map of 1inch, Sasha thought about the wider trends that Defi shape.
“In the next cycle we will see more settings that Defi introduce,” she predicted. “We are already seeing centralized exchanges such as Binance and OKX that are launching web3 portfolios, and even banks -such as Societe Generale with his Forge platform -exploring Defi integrations.”
On the more chaotic side of the market, she recognized the rise of meme coins.
“When Trump launched his meme, it brought in many new users, but many of them were destroyed,” she said. “I would like to see some sort of training or perhaps even system reports that warn people that meme coins are meme coins – they are not guaranteed power machines.”
Real assets and ai: the following limits
Sasha is especially enthusiastic about the tokenization of Real-World Assets.
“I met someone who token token for an African central bank – can you imagine?” She said laughing. “We are going to see more real estate tokenization, Hedgefonds -Tokenization … these are the trends that the first billion users can bring in crypto.”
And what about those billions on board?
“We need AI agents,” Sasha claimed. “Imagine an AI assistant in the 1 -inch wallet that leads new users, answer their questions and helps them navigate. Functions. I can only help 100 people a day; an AI agent can help thousands, 24/7.”
Towards the end of April, 1 inch had a big announcement: its expansion to Solana.
“We are not only EVM compatible anymore; we are expanding to Layer 1S, and we invite users to guess which chains will come afterwards.”