BlockBeats news: On September 10, 1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz stated that since its founding in 2019, 1inch has processed a cumulative trading volume of approximately $809 billion in token swaps, yet the company has yet to turn a profit. Kunz believes that the current DeFi market size is still insufficient to support large-scale revenue generation through value extraction; instead of pursuing short-term profits, the focus should remain on building infrastructure.
Kunz revealed that 1inch is addressing DeFi liquidity fragmentation through its newly launched shared liquidity protocol, Aqua. A study commissioned by 1inch and conducted by Dune shows that, in the first half of 2026, approximately 85% of concentrated liquidity on major decentralized exchanges was underutilized, with about $1.6 billion of the $1.84 billion in tracked liquidity remaining largely unused, resulting in an estimated $150 million in annual fee revenue going unclaimed.
Aqua allows liquidity providers to support multiple trading pairs simultaneously using their wallet balances, without depositing assets into liquidity pools, with trade settlements handled by compliance-vetted market makers. On its launch day, approximately $25 million in funds were deployed, alongside incentives of 10 million 1INCH and 500,000 USDC.
Currently, 1inch has partnered with major platforms such as Coinbase, and Robinhood has listed it as a Robinhood Chain partner. Kunz stated that 1inch prefers to first build out its infrastructure and seek commercialization opportunities once traditional finance and larger volumes of capital enter the space.