How Ophis compares
This page is a decision guide, not a sales pitch. It explains what an intent-based swap is, what Ophis shares with CoW Swap, and where the four front-ends below genuinely diverge so you can pick the right one for your trade.
What "intent-based" means
A traditional DEX swap is a transaction: you pick a route, sign it, and broadcast it yourself. An intent-based swap is different. You sign a statement of what you want ("sell 1,000 USDC, receive at least X ETH"), and a competitive network of solvers races to fill it. You never specify the path; you specify the outcome, and the order only settles if a solver meets or beats the price you signed.
Those orders are then cleared in batch auctions. Instead of each trade hitting the chain alone, many orders settle together at a uniform clearing price. This is what gives the model its MEV protection: there is no public pending transaction for a bot to front-run or sandwich, and orders inside a batch can be matched directly against each other (coincidence of wants) before any pool is touched.
Ophis is built on CoW Protocol
Ophis is a fork of the CoW Protocol stack. The settlement contracts, the
batch-auction mechanism, the MEV protection, and the non-custodial design are
shared with CoW Swap, not reinvented. Funds move only when a solver settles
the batch, and the on-chain GPv2Settlement contract code is unchanged.
That matters for how you read the rest of this page: execution quality, MEV protection, and custody are on par with CoW Swap because they are the same foundation. The differentiation lives one layer up, in the interface and the API. The comparisons below are about that layer.
Core differences
Natural-language input vs token-picker
CoW Swap, Matcha, and Velora all drive trades through a token-picker UI: choose a sell token, choose a buy token, choose a chain, set an amount. Ophis adds a natural-language front door. You type "swap 100 USDC for ETH on Base" and a parser turns the sentence into a structured order, which is then signed and settled through the same batch auction. The token-picker still exists underneath; the sentence is an additional way in, and it is the path the agent API uses too.
Cross-chain scope
This is where the four front-ends differ most concretely:
- Ophis: 12 EVM chains as source or destination, plus Solana and Bitcoin as cross-chain destinations.
- CoW Swap: EVM chains plus Solana as a destination. No Bitcoin.
- Matcha: EVM chains plus Solana.
- Velora: EVM only.
Ophis and CoW Swap reach non-EVM destinations through NEAR Intents, a non-custodial cross-chain settlement layer. The practical point for a trader: you do not open a second wallet or hand custody to a bridge. You sign once on the source chain, and NEAR Intents brokers delivery to the Solana or Bitcoin address you named. Bitcoin as a destination is, among these four, unique to Ophis.
Fee transparency
The four projects price trades on different models:
- Ophis: a flat 0.10% (10 bps) Ophis fee on trade volume, with a reduced 0.01% (1 bp) on same-chain stablecoin-to-stablecoin swaps. On the Ophis-operated chains (Optimism, Unichain) that flat fee is the all-in cost. On the 10 CoW-hosted chains, CoW Protocol's own fees apply on top (a 0.02% protocol volume fee, 0.003% on correlated pairs, plus 50% of any quote improvement, capped at 0.98% of volume), bringing the fixed all-in to 0.12% / 0.013% there. The fixed part is knowable before you trade.
- CoW Swap: a 0.02% (2 bps) protocol volume fee (0.003% on correlated pairs) plus 50% of the quote improvement a solver finds beyond your quote (capped at 0.98% of volume), so part of the cost depends on how the batch fills.
- Matcha: a tiered model, roughly 0.25% on most pairs and 0.05% on stablecoin pairs.
- Velora: a 15 bps (0.15%) interface fee on most swaps, with a reduced 1 bp (0.01%) on stablecoin pairs.
A worked comparison on a 1,000 USDC trade (non-stablecoin output, e.g. to ETH) makes the structure visible:
| Front-end | Fixed fee on 1,000 USDC | Improvement (surplus) split |
|---|---|---|
| Ophis on Optimism / Unichain | 1.00 USDC (0.10%) | 100% to you |
| Ophis on CoW-hosted chains | 1.20 USDC (0.12% all-in) | 50% of quote improvement retained upstream by CoW Protocol |
| CoW Swap | 0.20 USDC (0.02%) | 50% of quote improvement retained by CoW Protocol |
| Matcha | 2.50 USDC (0.25%) | Positive slippage, route-dependent |
| Velora | 1.50 USDC (0.15%) | Positive slippage, route-dependent |
On a same-chain stablecoin-to-stablecoin swap of 1,000 USDC, Ophis charges 0.10 USDC (0.01%) on Optimism and Unichain and 0.13 USDC all-in on CoW-hosted chains, Matcha 0.50 USDC (0.05%), and Velora 0.10 USDC (0.01%). The takeaway is not that one number is always lowest. It is that the Ophis fee is flat and published all-in per chain, and that on the Ophis-operated chains no one takes any share of your price improvement.
Where the surplus goes
Both Ophis and CoW Swap run batch auctions where solvers compete to beat the price you signed. The extra value a solver finds beyond your quote is the surplus (price improvement).
Ophis itself takes zero cut of surplus on any chain: its fee is flat on volume, never on improvement. Where the order settles decides the rest:
- On Optimism and Unichain (the chains Ophis operates end to end), 100% of the price improvement is returned to you. Among the venues on this page, that is the best published improvement split.
- On the 10 CoW-hosted chains, CoW Protocol's fee model retains 50% of the quote improvement (capped at 0.98% of volume) before the remainder is returned. That upstream capture applies equally to CoW Swap itself and to every front-end settling through CoW's hosted infrastructure, Ophis included. You are never charged an Ophis price-improvement fee anywhere.
Agent-first API
Every front-end here exposes some programmatic surface, but they target different
callers. CoW Swap and Velora publish orderbook / REST APIs and SDKs aimed at
integrators wiring up an order flow. Matcha exposes the 0x Swap API. Ophis is
built for agents: a public POST /api/intent endpoint that takes a
natural-language sentence and returns a structured order with no API key, plus
a hosted MCP server so an LLM agent can discover and call the swap surface as a
tool. The same sentence a person types is the same sentence an agent posts.
Where each excels
- CoW Swap: the most mature production solver network and the deepest liquidity reach across EVM chains. If solver-network maturity is your first priority, this is the reference implementation.
- Matcha: the broadest EVM chain coverage of the four.
- Velora: competitive low fees, especially the 1 bp stablecoin rate.
- Ophis: natural-language input, Bitcoin as a destination, a flat and predictable fee, and an agent-first API. It is the option built for English-in / order-out and for autonomous agents.
Trade-offs, stated plainly
Ophis runs its own solver and orderbook on Optimism and Unichain, where its stack is self-hosted; on the other chains it surfaces, it relies on CoW's hosted infrastructure and solver network. CoW's production solver network is more mature and more battle-tested than the Optimism-focused stack Ophis operates directly. If you are trading large size on a chain where you want the deepest, most-proven solver competition, CoW Swap is the more conservative pick. Ophis's advantage is the interface and API layer described above, on top of the shared settlement foundation.
Reference table
| Ophis | CoW Swap | Matcha (0x) | Velora (ex-ParaSwap) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How you trade | Natural language, e.g. "swap 100 USDC for ETH on Base" | Token picker (signed intents) | Token picker | Token picker |
| Settlement | CoW Protocol batch auctions (shared foundation) | CoW Protocol batch auctions | 0x aggregation / RFQ | Aggregation across DEXs |
| Cross-chain scope | 12 EVM chains + Solana + Bitcoin (via NEAR Intents) | EVM + Solana (via NEAR Intents); no Bitcoin | EVM + Solana | EVM only |
| Fee model | Flat 0.10% (10 bps) Ophis fee; 0.01% (1 bp) stable pairs. All-in on Optimism/Unichain; +0.02% CoW protocol fee (0.003% correlated) on CoW-hosted chains = 0.12% / 0.013% all-in there | 0.02% protocol volume fee (0.003% correlated) + 50% of quote improvement, capped at 0.98% of volume | Tiered: ~0.25% on most pairs, ~0.05% on stablecoin pairs | 0.15% (15 bps) on most swaps; 0.01% (1 bp) on stablecoin pairs |
| Surplus (price improvement) | 100% to the trader on Optimism/Unichain; on CoW-hosted chains CoW Protocol retains 50% of quote improvement upstream. Ophis itself takes zero cut anywhere | 50% of quote improvement retained (capped 0.98% of volume), remainder to the trader | Returned via positive slippage, route-dependent | Returned via positive slippage, route-dependent |
| Agent API | Public POST /api/intent (no key) + hosted MCP server | Orderbook REST API and SDK | 0x Swap API | REST API and SDK |
| Rebates | 21.25% of WETH fees paid back monthly as volume-tier rebates | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| MEV protection | Yes (batch auctions) | Yes (batch auctions) | Partial / route-dependent | Partial / route-dependent |
Read next
- Fees & rebates: the full flat-fee model, the stablecoin rate, and how rebates accrue.
- How it works: the intent lifecycle, batch auctions, and per-chain settlement. Live service status is on the Status page.
- FAQ: How is Ophis different: the short version of this page.
Competitor fee and chain details reflect each project's public documentation as of
July 2026 and may change. The CoW-hosted all-in figures were additionally
verified against live production quotes (the quote API's protocolFeeBps
field) on 2026-07-03. Sources:
CoW Protocol fees,
Matcha fees,
Velora UI fees.