Crypto Traders Uncover Hidden Liquidity Paths in Onchain Market

Large crypto trades no longer just hit an automated market maker (AMM) pool and hope for the best. Instead, they hunt for liquidity across various platforms, including AMMs, request-for-quote (RFQ) market makers, and private lanes that most people never see.

Onchain RFQ allows traders to get firm quotes from professional market makers and minimize price impact, while AMMs remain the default for smaller or long-tail tokens. Aggregators route between the two based on size, depth, and slippage settings, often splitting the order.

In practice, aggregators blend both AMM and RFQ, testing a small 'warm-up' amount on AMMs to probe depth and price, pinging RFQ makers for firm quotes, then splitting the order. This composite fill hides a lot of moving parts.

When deciding whether to split a large order, traders should consider factors such as depth vs size, volatility, routing options, gas math, and privacy. Using private submission for bigger chunks can cut MEV leak.