1inch is rewriting the rules for DeFi capital efficiency with the launch of Aqua, a shared liquidity protocol that allows multiple strategies to tap the same wallet without giving up user custody.

The platform tackles a long-standing problem in decentralized finance: fragmented liquidity that limits how effectively capital can be deployed across protocols.

Developers got early access to Aqua’s SDK, libraries, and documentation on GitHub during Devconnect in Argentina on Monday. The full front-end interface is slated for an early 2026 release. To encourage participation, 1inch is offering bounties of up to $100,000 for bug reports, performance enhancements, and contributions during the developer preview.

Capital Efficiency Meets Self-Custody

Traditional DeFi setups force liquidity providers to choose between single-strategy pools or locked positions that limit flexibility. Aqua flips this model. Assets remain in user wallets while multiple strategies access them only during trade execution.

Alos, users can authorize tokens across automated market makers, stable swap pools, or custom logic, with access tracked by Aqua’s accounting system.

Co-founder Anton Bukov explained that Aqua solves liquidity fragmentation by multiplying effective capital, with no efficiency cap beyond strategy design. Sergej Kunz, co-founder, compared the protocol to 1inch’s 2019 aggregation innovations, describing Aqua as foundational infrastructure for capital-efficient DeFi.

Each wallet effectively becomes a self-custodial automated market maker, with strategies pulling and returning liquidity atomically under predefined rules.

The shared liquidity approach not only increases capital efficiency—how much liquidity one wallet can provide—but also utility efficiency, letting the same capital fulfill multiple DeFi roles simultaneously. Users can provide liquidity, vote in governance, or post collateral without locking funds into individual contracts. Depending on setup, this could double or even triple effective liquidity.

Developer-Friendly Architecture

Builders can create strategies from scratch or leverage SwapVM instruction libraries to assemble new channels. Aqua eliminates deposit and withdrawal logic, letting applications query balances instead of managing funds. This design lets developers focus on strategy innovation while end users maintain maximum capital efficiency without losing custody.

1inch already operates one of the largest DeFi ecosystems, supporting over 26 million users with daily trading volumes above $500 million. Its offerings include DEX aggregation, self-custodial wallets, portfolio management tools, and integrations across both EVM and non-EVM networks.

Earlier this year, Coinbase integrated 1inch’s API to improve swap execution, and Aqua builds on this ecosystem with cross-chain swap capabilities between Solana and EVM networks.

The launch of Aqua also comes amid rising institutional interest in DeFi infrastructure capable of handling regulated financial instruments. By allowing capital to flow efficiently across strategies without custody tradeoffs, 1inch positions Aqua as essential infrastructure for Ethereum and compatible networks, tackling the liquidity fragmentation that has constrained the broader ecosystem.