1inch review: why it scores 6.74

The decentralized exchanges ranking weights five criteria: Scale of value trusted (32%), Security audits (27%), Track record (19%), Multi-chain reach (13%) and Latency (9%). Value locked and audits lead because an on-chain venue depends on liquidity and code safety. Status transparency and Security record are not scored in this category, so they neither help nor hurt 1inch here.

All five criteria were measured, so coverage is 100% and no weight was redistributed. The contributions: Track record 10 × 19% = 1.90, Security audits 6 × 27% = 1.62, Scale of value trusted 4 × 32% = 1.28, Multi-chain reach 8 × 13% = 1.04, Latency 10 × 9% = 0.90. Total: 6.74. Of the 3.26 points not earned, 1.92 come from scale, 1.08 from audits and 0.26 from reach. The methodology page sets out the bands behind each score.

This rating covers the 1inch swap protocol as DefiLlama tracks it. Company background, products and fees are on the separate 1inch company profile and are not part of the score.

DefiLlama carries one published audit link for 1inch, which points to 1inch's own security page. That is a count of links on DefiLlama, not a claim that 1inch has been audited only once. It scores 6, where two links would score 8 and three would score 10. It is still well above the category: the median DEX in this ranking has no listed audit and a median audit score of 2. The criterion counts audit links that can be read, not their findings or scope, so the number says nothing on its own about how serious the issues were or whether later contract versions were reviewed. Audits reduce risk; they do not remove it, and the two incidents in DefiLlama's hack database described below are a reminder of that.

Track record is measured at 2,668 days, counted from the documented 2019 launch rather than a DefiLlama listing date. The record gives a year without a month, so the count starts on July 1, 2019. That is the longest age among the services compared on this page and more than double the category median of 1,295 days. The methodology treats survival as signal because most failures happen young. It says only that the service kept operating, not what happened along the way.

Our probe timed the app.1inch.io interface at a median 97 ms to first byte, against a category median of 122 ms. That is one location, with the slowest of three samples discarded, and it measures the web front end rather than the contracts. Latency carries only 9% of the weight; the 10 here is worth 0.90 points.

DefiLlama recorded $3,202,335 in total value locked for the 1inch swap protocol at collection. The category median is $232.9M, and the median scale score is 7. On the methodology's log scale, $3.2M scores 4. At 32% weight, that is a 1.28-point contribution where a median DEX earns 2.24, and it is the main reason 1inch sits seventh rather than higher.

The low number has a structural cause. 1inch is an aggregator: it routes a swap through other venues' liquidity rather than keeping pools of its own, so its contracts hold little value by design. The criterion does not make an exception for that. It measures how much capital users have left sitting in a service's contracts, and for 1inch that figure is small whatever the reason. The score is therefore accurate about what it measures, and it also means the rating says nothing about how much volume passes through 1inch, which is not a scored metric.

DefiLlama lists the 1inch swap protocol on 2 chains, which matches the category median and scores 8. Reach carries 13% of the weight and is a tie-breaker, so the 0.26 points lost here are minor.

Fees, routing quality, price impact, slippage, token coverage, the wallet product and the interface experience are not scored for any DEX on CoinPulse. Nothing in the 6.74 reflects whether 1inch finds a better price than another venue, which is the question an aggregator exists to answer. Smart-contract risk is only approximated through audits and value locked.

Security record is not part of the DEX profile, so the following is context, not score. DefiLlama's hack database matched two incidents to 1inch Swap when checked on October 19, 2026. On March 7, 2025, DefiLlama records a $5,000,000 loss attributed to an arbitrary external call, with no returned amount recorded. On October 31, 2024, it records a $723,000 loss attributed to a supply chain attack, again with no returned amount recorded. Had the DEX profile scored Security record, the 2025 incident would have fallen in the under-$10M band and set the score. Incidents outside DefiLlama's database are not tracked, and neither the amounts nor the attack descriptions have been verified beyond that source.

No public status page was found for 1inch, and no incidents were logged in the 90-day collection window. Status transparency is not scored for DEXs, so the missing page costs nothing here.

1inch and every peer named here have 100% coverage, so each gap comes straight from criterion scores. The leader, Uniswap V3 at 9.49, matches 1inch on latency (10) and trails it on track record (9 against 10, worth 0.19 to 1inch). The 2.75-point gap is scale (9 against 4, worth 1.60), audits (three links against one, 10 against 6, worth 1.08) and reach (44 chains against 2, worth 0.26).

SushiSwap, fifth at 7.37, has the same audit score (6) and track record (10) as 1inch. Its $96.3M locked scores 6 on scale (worth 0.64 more) and its 44 chains score 10 on reach (0.26 more), while its slower interface scores 7 on latency (0.27 less), leaving it 0.63 ahead.

Directly above 1inch, Raydium AMM at 7.00 shows the trade-off in reverse. It holds $1.18B and scores 9 on scale, 1.60 points more than 1inch, but has no listed audit (2 against 6, a 1.08-point swing) and one chain (6 against 8, 0.26), so it finishes 0.26 ahead. Orca DEX, eighth at 6.62, gains 0.96 on scale and loses 1.08 on audits, which leaves it 0.12 behind 1inch. In this part of the table, 1inch is the service that has audits but little locked value; its nearest neighbors have the opposite profile.

On the open signals this method reads, 1inch has the longest track record among the DEXs compared here, a published audit link and a fast interface, and it loses most of its points on a single criterion that its design keeps low. The rating does not measure the thing an aggregator is used for, which is the price it finds, and it does not score the two incidents in DefiLlama's database. Reading the linked audits, checking the contract you approve and understanding which venues a route passes through remain the reader's job. No service can pay for its position here; see how this site is funded.