📖 QuickStart
ParaSwap is a middleware streamlining user's interactions with various DeFi services. It gathers liquidity from the main decentralized exchanges together in a convenient interface abstracting most of the swaps' complexity to make it convenient and accessible for end-users.
ParaSwap can be used directly, though the ParaSwap website, or integrated into other decentralized applications, listed ondApps integrating ParaSwap.
The only thing you need to use ParaSwap is an Ethereum wallet.
While initializing a wallet, make sure to properly set up and back up your recovery mechanism (such as the seed phrase).
Ethereum's DeFi operates in a permissionless manner: there are no checks required to use a given DeFi service. All you need to get aboard is a wallet - used to store and secure your assets:
🦊 MetaMask is the most commonly used wallet to interact with DeFi services.
With a wallet secured, you have everything you need to interact with ParaSwap and any other decentralized finance services.
If you are not familiar with Ethereum and how to handle transaction and gas costs, feel free to check:
ParaSwap facilitates the exchange of Ethereum tokens, abstracting most of the complexity now required to conduct trades at the best market rates.
ParaSwap abstracts the complexity of comparing prices and optimizing swaps (factoring gas costs and other variables) for you — so you can focus on your trading strategy or learning more about the fundamentals of the space.
To better understand the advantages of using ParaSwap over interacting with a decentralized exchange directly, check the dedicated page:
The ParaSwap swap interface is similar to Uniswap, with additional information related to the various optimizations it implements:
The order routing provides an overview of the different exchanges and pools used to settle your trade. In the table below, you can find additional details for each route.
If you're swapping tokens with the intent to send the acquired tokens somewhere else, consider swap & transfer. It's exactly the same as the previous simple swap, except this time the tokens obtained are sent to another address of your choice:
Using Swap & Transfer, you can execute two distinct operations in a single transaction, helping to reduce your effective gas costs.
That's pretty much it - for a minimal understanding of ParaSwap: PS optimizes token swaps. To do so, it abstracts from the user experience many operations that are necessary to provide the best rates possible.
While our UI provide details on the various operations performed (you can hoover on various part of the interface for more details), this documentation exists to help you understand more in-depth how this is done, the various services ParaSwap wraps or interacts with & all other relevant optimizations.
Now that you have an understanding of the main features and benefits offered by ParaSwap, this last section provides inspiration to envision what you can do to best harness its potential:
Let's start with the easiest to understand: large orders, aka ParaSwap's reason to be. Thanks to the capacity to split orders into several decentralized exchanges, ParaSwap's is often the most effective solution for orders >15 ETH.
MultiPath increased the efficiency of ParaSwap even more while enabling new use cases. It helps to streamline a series of transactions involving interactions with several DeFi protocol. You can now interact with smart contracts such as Aave's or Compound's deposit contract, directly from ParaSwap. It enables interesting opportunities such as direct and efficient collateral swaps between the two, such as a cDAI -> aDAI swap.
Thanks to MultiPath, you can use ParaSwap to aggregate your DeFi operations and reduce the impact of gas costs on your strategies. For instance, if you are active in ERC-20 tokens market, ParaSwap will help you take profits and save in one optimized transaction: LINK just broke ATH? You can do LINK -> aUSDC to take profits & start earning on them in one swap: no regrets!
If you need to make a payment in a currency you do not own, you can use ParaSwap to avoid any unnecessary extra steps. You can pay them from any of the tokens you own with Swap & Transfer & ParaSwap handles sending them for you - make sure to double-check the destination address!
The ParaSwap's UI displays several data points relative to your projected trade to help you understand the routing, gas costs, and price impact.
Estimated Cost:: the total Ethereum gas costs of your transaction.
Price Impact:: the average slippage expected on the various pools involved to settle to the swap.
Minimum Received: Prices on crypto markets fluctuate constantly. The Minimum Received amount corresponds to the worst-case scenario for your trade.
For any trade, you will find the order routing details below the price chart. If you hoover on an arrow between two steps, you can see the details.
Routing swaps efficiently is actually a quite complex topic, so to better understand how ParaSwap consistently achieve great rates we invite you to dive into the dedicated page:
Finally, depending on your preferences, you can switch the UI to light mode. Simply click the lightbulb button at the top right of the interface:
