1inch has opened Aqua, its shared DeFi liquidity layer, to all users, eight months after releasing it to developers only. "he protocol went live on Tuesday across 13 EVM chains, among them Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain and Robinhood Chain. A front end had originally been slated for the first quarter.

Billed as "the foundation for scalable, capital-efficient DeFi," Aqua works as a registry rather than a pool. A provider approves a token balance and creates positions that draw on it. Tokens are never deposited into a contract; when a swap matches a position's terms, the protocol pulls them and returns proceeds and fees atomically. Approvals are set per token and per chain, and can be revoked.

Every swap on Aqua is executed by a "verified counterparty," which 1inch defines as "a market maker or arbitrage bot that has been verified," with the check "enforced on-chain at swap time." 1inch calls it the first risk-controlled liquidity venue and part of a shift toward "risk-controlled and regulated DeFi." When Aqua reached developers in November, the company said anyone could interact with a position to execute a swap.

It also says each position's single owner makes just-in-time fee skimming impossible, putting the cost of such attacks at up to 44% of provider fee income.

1inch offers the example of a $100,000 balance supporting three positions that collectively quote $300,000. Nothing is borrowed, and a swap can only execute against tokens actually in the wallet, so exposure is capped by holdings rather than by the positions' combined size.

The 1inch Foundation has committed 10 million 1INCH in provider rewards for the launch, with a further 500,000 USDC from the 1inch DAO, distributed through Merkl.

Aqua has been through eight independent audits, by firms including OpenZeppelin, Nethermind, Hexens and Bailsec. 1inch added the caveat that the product is built for "experienced users," noting that fees are not guaranteed, prices can move against a position, and providers carry market and smart contract risk.

At the time of its early access launch, a spokesperson for 1inch claimed that Aqua has the potential to "transform how capital and yield strategies operate in DeFi," providing deeper liquidity across the industry and reducing fragmentation.