AIP 30: AirSwap Web App

[agriimony]

• by @dmosites

Project Progress: Design Project Progress: Dev

Summary

AirSwap is the original token swapping app. Over the years, several iterations were launched, with the current version released two years ago. While it works well, the industry has evolved, technology has improved, and open source is now the default.

We propose to reintroduce AirSwap as a token swapping destination, refined around a lean, simple, and secure swapping experience establishing a new visual style for AirSwap web properties and being open source with many contributors.

Specification

The web app would consolidate core user journeys into a single destination. Traders can assume the role of either makers who set prices or takers who accept them. Traders may alternate between roles in a session, for example, if they don’t find a price and decide to post their own.

Initial Features

• Get the Best Price for a Swap
• Approve Tokens for Swap
• Complete a Selected Swap

Potential Features

• Post Prices to a Board
• Wrap and Unwrap Ether
• Get Uniswap Quotes

Rationale

• AirSwap needs an open source web app.
• AirSwap needs a web app that implements the Light RFQ Protocol.
• Consolidates AIP 23 and potentially includes the OTC board functionality.
  • Boards could plug into servers run by community members.
  • Orders are signed and executed on-chain so cannot be manipulated.
  • Orders on a board could be taken by anyone (public) by wrapping the Light contract.
• Could be hosted at swap.eth.link or airswap.eth.link.

[agriimony]

astholder Apr 4

Yes to all of this :slight_smile:

One request - can we have an analytics overview of airswap activities included? perhaps something basic like you can see on Uniswap Info 5 ?

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CryptoPundit Apr 4

It should be a responsive webapp that works on mobiles as well.

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zzew12 Apr 5

Very glad to see new product ideas, and think this should be the highest priority. Some questions:

(1) How will the posting of prices work with aggregators like MetaMask (where most of our traffic currently comes from)? Would quotes posted within the app be sent out to aggregators or remain solely within the app? I’m guessing that the precise nature of RFQ makes it difficult to find matches via the simple input of aggregators, i.e. someone who wants to “make” a trade for 600 ETH at a price of 2000 USDT would only find a “taker” if a counterparty made a request for exactly 1,200,000 USDT; they’d be more likely to be successful if it was visible on a board where counterparties seeking trades in a similar range can find it and potentially negotiate terms. Could this process of search and negotiation be automated by introducing flexibility to the quotation process, for example by allowing the option to specify a range of acceptability in size of trades or partial fulfillment of orders? That is, even if I ideally want to trade 600 ETH, but if an order for 1,000,000 USDT worth of ETH was placed on MetaMask, I might be happy to fill it with 500 ETH. The issue is that aggregators attract a large volume of traffic but because of the rigidity of incoming orders it is difficult to take advantage of this without the commitment required to run a server that limits the role of providing liquidity to professional market makers. By defining a range in size (e.g. between 400-750 ETH, rather than exactly 600 ETH) retail users can in effect have the functionality of a mini-server that is able to respond to a range of requests.

(2) My second set of questions concerns the target market audience for the app: if it doesn’t integrate well into aggregators, where will it source traffic from? Or, more precisely, who is its intended demographic? My impression is that swaps are typically performed between institutional traders. Do you expect this to be the case moving forward? Or do you think it offers a good proposition for a broader audience? (And, if the latter, how is AirSwap different from non-crypto trading?) Presumably this will affect both marketing strategies, as well as the sort of functionality it needs to incorporate (e.g. I agree with the above comment that mobile usability would be ideal if targeting casual users, but do professional traders need this?).

(3) How difficult is it to include Uniswap quotes? If we are going to attract users, we need to provide some sort of assurance that their outcome will be at least as good as if they had stuck with the incumbent. Serving Uniswap quotes achieves this, and I think it is important to include this functionality from launch – the worst outcome would be someone trying AirSwap when it is new, deciding that it doesn’t match Uniswap prices, and never returning. astholder Apr 9

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@zzew12 - You ask all the right questions :slight_smile:

This is such a strong suggestion -

Could this process of search and negotiation be automated by introducing flexibility to the quotation process, for example by allowing the option to specify a range of acceptability in size of trades or partial fulfillment of orders? That is, even if I ideally want to trade 600 ETH, but if an order for 1,000,000 USDT worth of ETH was placed on MetaMask, I might be happy to fill it with 500 ETH.

This is important for me to understand better -

target market audience for the app: if it doesn’t integrate well into aggregators, where will it source traffic from? Or, more precisely, who is its intended demographic?

The AirSwap website historically hasn’t been able to attract much traffic. Understanding the target audience would help me better understand what types of functionalities are ‘nice to have’ vs. ‘need to have’.

I agree that the worst case scenario is…

the worst outcome would be someone trying AirSwap when it is new, deciding that it doesn’t match Uniswap prices, and never returning.

I would extend this concern to not just pricing, but usability, token pairs, liquidity, etc compared with the other providers.

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astholder Apr 13

Would it be possible to include staking/voting functionality within the web app? perhaps also visualizations of the pool values??

Currently we have a number of different places to go to be an active community member - community.airswap, discord, airswap.io 2, activate, zerion etc… Perhaps it is worth considering how we can integrate as much of this as possible in one place.

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Thijs Apr 14

Hi guys,

Upgrading the web app is a nice project, and I have a recommendation. At the moment, there’s no way to onboard users from the fiat world. Adding fiat-to-crypto onramps would perhaps solve this.

Now I’m a bit biased, as I’m the CEO at Onramper, where we’ve built a fiat-to-crypto gateway aggregator. Basically, whereas Airswap is a crypto-to-crypto swap aggregator, we are a fiat-to-crypto swap aggregator. Perhaps adding Onramper to Airswap web app would be a cool way to extend its possibilities. Alternatively, people could use Onramper to buy crypto to their wallet, and then use Airswap for crypto-to-crypto swaps.

Let me know what you think!

Thijs