At the heart of DeFi innovation, 1inch has built one of the most popular decentralized exchange aggregators in the space.

At Paris Blockchain Week 2025, we sat down with Aleksandra “Sasha” Fetisova, Head of Business Development at 1inch, to understand what’s next: for 1inch, DeFi, and the industry, in general.

Sasha revealed the latest upgrades, challenges in the ecosystem, and the trends she believes will reshape DeFi over the next few years.

Reinventing the Swap Experience

For those unfamiliar, 1inch doesn’t operate like a traditional DEX — it’s a DEX aggregator. Instead of providing a standalone marketplace, it scans hundreds of decentralized exchanges to deliver the best possible rates to its users.

Recent updates, Sasha explained, have pushed this even further.

“We improved our swap experience with an intent-based, cross-chain gasless solution called Fusion,” she said. “It’s interoperable across EVM chains, doesn’t rely on third-party bridges, and is protected against MEV [maximum extractable value] attacks. It’s all about making swaps faster, cheaper, and safer.”

For regular users, this means lower friction and lower cost, particularly when moving assets across chains — a pain point that’s long plagued decentralized finance.

Fees are a sensitive topic in crypto, where gas costs and platform cuts can quietly drain portfolios.

“Our users can be sure they’re doing direct swaps without any added fees,” Sasha emphasized. “We’re a community-driven project, and we don’t charge users on our DApp or mobile wallet.”

Behind the scenes, she credits the project’s developers for optimizing routing and smart contracts to keep swaps efficient and cheap. But that’s not the only factor:

“We aggregate liquidity from over 500 DEXs across 10 to 13 chains,” she said. “Plus, in Fusion mode, we work with professional market makers — resolvers — who pull liquidity not just from decentralized sources but also from centralized exchanges.”

Security Through Minimalism

One feature of 1inch’s approach is its laser focus on security.

“We’ve never been hacked,” Sasha stated 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 of writing minimal, highly efficient smart contracts.

“Instead of creating bloated, complex code, Anton spends hours thinking and then writes a small, functional piece of code — something that can be audited quickly and runs efficiently,” she explained. “It’s a very intentional design.”

Going Global: From Decentralized Team to Dubai Hub

Although 1inch was born during the remote-work explosion of COVID, the team recently opened its first physical office in Dubai.

“We see the IMEA region as very fruitful, especially under current market conditions,” Sasha shared. “If our community is traveling to Dubai, we’re happy to show them around!”

She hinted that Dubai’s choice aligns with favorable conditions for crypto innovation.

Looking beyond 1inch’s immediate roadmap, Sasha reflected on the broader trends shaping DeFi.

“In the next cycle, we’ll see more institutions entering DeFi,” she predicted. “We’re already seeing centralized exchanges like Binance and OKX launching Web3 wallets, and even banks — like Societe Generale with its FORGE platform — exploring DeFi integrations.”

On the more chaotic side of the market, she acknowledged the rise of meme coins.

“When Trump launched his meme coin, it brought in a lot of new users, but many of them got wrecked,” she said. “I’d love to see some kind of education or maybe even system notifications warning people that meme coins are meme coins — they’re not guaranteed wealth machines.”

Real-World Assets and AI: The Next Frontiers

Sasha is particularly excited about the tokenization of real-world assets.

“I met someone who tokenized mangoes for an African central bank — can you imagine?” she said, laughing. “We’re going to see more real estate tokenization, hedge fund tokenization… These are the trends that could bring the first billion users into crypto.”

And what about onboarding those billions?

“We need AI agents,” Sasha asserted. “Imagine an AI assistant in the 1inch wallet that guides new users, answers their questions, and helps them navigate features. I can only help maybe 100 people a day; an AI agent can help thousands, 24/7.”

Towards the end of April, 1inch had a major announcement: its expansion to Solana.

“We’re not just EVM-compatible anymore; we’re expanding to Layer 1s, and we invite users to guess which chains are coming next.”

TL;DR

• Bitcoin’s recent price surge has supposedly pushed 100% of holders out of paper losses.

• However, historical data suggest caution, as similar periods of high profitability have preceded significant price corrections.

No Paper Losses?

The primary cryptocurrency’s price jumped in the past 24 hours, briefly climbing above $97,500. The positive performance was likely driven by reports that the United States and Chinese officials will hold trade talks this weekend and could potentially discuss the removal or reduction of certain barriers, such as the staggering tariffs.

Somewhat expected, bitcoin’s upswing has benefited investors. Data compiled by IntoTheBlock shows that the percentage of BTC holders currently sitting at paper losses has dropped to 0%. The proportion of those “in the money” is roughly 95%, whereas 5% are at break-even.

According to the analytics platform, 75% of all BTC investors joined the ecosystem more than a year ago, and 21% have done so in the last 12 months. The newest holders (those who entered in the past 30 days) comprise only 4% of the total share. 

Despite its recent resurgence, BTC remains below its all-time high price of almost $110K, registered in mid-January. However, the gap has narrowed, and some analysts believe we might soon witness a fresh peak. 

X user CRYPTOWZRD, for instance, argued that the asset is “in a macro uptrend,” predicting a pump to almost $150,000 in the following months. 

KALEO and Changpeng Zhao (Binance’s former CEO) were even more bullish. The former thinks BTC has the potential to cross $500,000 during this cycle, while the latter believes the valuation could explode to a whopping $1 million. 

Cause for Concern

The stats notifying that no single BTC investor is sitting at a paper loss might sound encouraging, but it could also signal bad news for the bulls.

There have been some occasions in the past when the asset’s valuation experienced a substantial correction after such high (paper) profitability. In October 2024, for example, nearly 95% of BTC holders were sitting at some gains (at least on paper). Back then, the price stood at over $69,000, but shortly after, it briefly plunged below $65,500. Similar cases were observed in September and March last year. 

The Relative Strength Index is another factor suggesting that BTC could head south in the short term. This technical tool measures the speed and magnitude of the latest price changes and helps traders identify possible trend reversals.

It varies from 0 to 100, and ratios above 70 are considered bearish since they hint that the asset has entered oversold territory. The RSI has been on the rise in the past 24 hours, currently standing at around 66. According to CryptoWaves, this flashes the “Close to Sell” signal.

Bitcoin’s price correction that lasted a few days came to an abrupt halt as the cryptocurrency skyrocketed by over four grand from bottom to top within less than 12 hours.

Many altcoins have turned green as well, which could be attributed to positive developments on the US-China Trade War front.

BTC Rockets to $97K

BTC had a strong start to May, as its price surged from $93,500 on April 30 to over $97,000 the next day. The bulls kept the pressure on, and the asset climbed to $98,000 on Friday, its highest price tag in over two months.

While many anticipated a run toward $100,000, BTC’s price trajectory reversed, and it started to lose traction in the following days. By Monday and Tuesday, the primary digital asset had lost almost five grand and slipped to $93,500.

That’s when reports emerged that the two leading economic powers, China and the US, plan to meet in Switzerland soon regarding the tariffs set by both nations against each other. Trade War news has impacted the crypto market for the past few months, and this time was no exception.

Bitcoin reacted with an immediate price surge that drove it from the aforementioned low to over $97,600 within hours. Although it has lost some traction and now sits around $97,000, it’s still 3% up on the day.

Its market cap has neared $1.930 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the alts is above 62%.

LTC Bounces-Off

Following news that the SEC had delayed making a decision on an LTC ETF application, the underlying asset plunged hard yesterday by over 8%. However, its 24-hour chart now shows a 13% surge that has pushed its price beyond $92.

HYPE follows suit in terms of daily gains, having surged past $21 after a 6% increase. CRO, AAVE, SUI, LINK, DOGE, ADA, BCH, and HBAR are also well in the green.

The total crypto market cap has added over $70 billion since yesterday’s low and is above $3.1 trillion on CG now.