DeFi Aggregators Weather Storm as Intent-Based Trading Gains Traction

Decentralized-exchange aggregators have seen a significant decline in trading volume this year. According to DefiLlama and Messari data, daily aggregator volume dropped about 40% quarter-over-quarter in the first quarter of 2026, from roughly $4.6 billion to $2.7 billion.

The market is consolidating around a handful of leaders, with each aggregator dominant on different chains. For example, Jupiter handles roughly 95% of Solana's aggregator volume and has cleared well over $1 trillion in cumulative trades.

On the other hand, 1inch is the largest DEX aggregator by cumulative volume, having processed hundreds of billions of dollars in lifetime swaps across roughly a dozen chains. Its intent-based Fusion system fell far less than its older protocol during the downturn, and its fastest-growing business is tokenized real-world assets.

The shift towards 'intent-based' trading is gaining momentum, with 1inch's own data showing that its intent-based Fusion product fell about 27%, compared with roughly 60% for its older aggregation protocol. Intent-based execution has been found to beat public-mempool routing by roughly 5 to 30 basis points on trades exposed to front-running.