Decentralized Exchanges: A Conversation With 1inch’s Sergej Kunz

The following is an interview we recently had with Sergej Kunz, CEO and co-founder of 1inch.

What's your background? How did you get involved in crypto/blockchain?

SK: I was born in Siberia and moved as a child with my whole family to Germany, where I have been living for about 20 years now. I started to study programming while I was 14 and keep on doing it everyday. My professional experience is around 15 years of software engineering, architecture and security. In 2007, I started my first own business in the field of telecommunication aggregation and software development, and right before 1inch for a couple of years I was working for Porsche AG. Currently I’m focused on 1inch development only.

Back in 2011, one of my colleagues told me about crypto mining and I tried it myself. Was mining LTC and also BTC for a while, but soon lost interest in this technology. In December 2016, I found out that it’s possible to mine ETH with GPU’s, built my first mining rig and was very amused with the results. Since then I have stuck to the blockchain industry.

What value does 1inch.exchange bring to users? 

SK: 1inch is a powerful DEX aggregator that combines Ethereum’s leading automated market makers. By providing access to 40+ protocols, the 1inch’s user-friendly interface enables traders to benefit from finding the best rate on the market to execute their swaps. With added innovations like the Chi GasToken for hedging against gas fee volatility and “virtual balances”, our team has created an offering unlike any other in the Ethereum ecosystem today. Moreover, 1inch provides the highest efficiency in its own liquidity pools.

Where do you see 1inch.exchange five years from now?

SK: I believe that in the next 5 years the DeFi industry will grow a lot. We will eliminate intermediaries such as banks and replace them with DeFi. As for the traders it will be much easier to swap tokens via our DEX aggregator rather than to check bids on all the different protocols and pools manually. Moreover, in the upcoming couple of years 1inch is going to be ready to compete with centralized exchanges for users who swap assets a few times a day. And of course, we'll keep growing 1inch as a genuine market leader with the best user experience and products.

What are the most common misconceptions you hear about decentralized exchanges? 

SK: The first common misconception coming to my head reminds me of CZ’s famous tweet: “Funds are #SAFU”. But unfortunately users’ funds are NOT that safe – just look at all the DeFi hacks that have happened in the last 2 years. That’s why our team cares so much about security audits on every stage of product’s development.

What’s next for decentralized exchanges in 2021?

SK: The scaling of blockchain is still a missing piece for further growth of the DeFi sector, but we see some L2 solutions by Optimism and Matter Labs which are hopefully going to solve this in the coming months of 2021.