About this episode
In this episode of Bullish on Bitcoin Show, Alexei sits down with Sergej Kunz, co-founder of 1inch — one of the most widely used DeFi aggregators in crypto, processing billions in trading volume across dozens of chains. From building Ethereum mining rigs in 2016, to live-streaming smart contract security audits on YouTube, to inventing intent-based trading at a hackathon in 2019, Sergej's journey is a masterclass in building from first principles.
This episode gets deep into the mechanics of how modern DeFi trading actually works — intents, Dutch auctions, MEV and sandwich attacks, cross-chain atomicity, and why most users still don't get the protection they deserve. Sergej also pulls back the curtain on 1inch Aqua, the protocol's most ambitious product yet: a full DEX replacement that turns your wallet into a liquidity venue, and what it means for LPs, market makers, and agentic trading.
In this episode we discuss:
- Sergej's origin story: Litecoin mining on a MacBook, Ethereum rigs, live smart contract audits, and how 1inch was born at a hackathon
- Why 1inch built intent-based trading in 2023 — and why it took two years for the industry to catch up
- How intents protect users from sandwich attacks, failed transactions, and MEV extraction
- The Dutch auction mechanism: how 1inch Fusion works and why users can get better than market rate
- The "over-quoting" problem in cross-chain swaps — and why it's harder to detect than same-chain dishonesty
- Atomic cross-chain swaps via intents: why 1inch's HTLC-based model is different from bridges
- Why 1inch has no competitors — only partners — and what the market distribution data actually shows
- 1inch Aqua: not a helper tool, but a full DEX replacement where your wallet becomes a liquidity venue
- How Aqua unlocks concentrated, multi-pair LP strategies across RWAs, tokenized equities, and meme coins
- Why Aqua LPs earn significantly more than traditional AMM providers — and how the backtest proves it
- The 1inch MCP: how agents can already manage liquidity positions via Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT today
- Sub-wallets, quality gates, and the "Agent Armada" — how 1inch thinks about agentic guardrails
- When will 1inch support native Bitcoin? Sergej reveals a prototype exists and the 2027 roadmap
- Full agent autonomy vs human-in-the-loop: why both have a place, and what it takes to trust an agent with real money
