Who uses the protocol?

Last modified: April 16, 2026

Three participant classes form a self-reinforcing cycle: traders generate fee revenue, liquidity providers supply the capital that keeps slippage low, and developers extend the system through permissionless smart-contract integration.

Traders

Any address — externally owned or contract — can swap against protocol pools.

Participant	Role
Retail traders	Swap tokens through the web app or third-party frontends
Arbitrageurs	Align pool prices with external markets by exploiting mispricings
DEX aggregators	Route orders across multiple venues to minimise price impact
On-chain protocols	Execute swaps programmatically via the SwapRouter within larger DeFi workflows

Every swap pays the pool's fee tier regardless of caller. Fees accrue exclusively to in-range liquidity — see Fees.

Liquidity providers

LPs deposit token pairs and earn a pro-rata share of swap fees. Risk and reward vary with strategy:

Strategy	Description	Profile
Passive full-range	Deposit and hold — equivalent to v2 behaviour	Low maintenance, lower fee APR
Concentrated range	Allocate capital within a chosen price band	Higher APR, requires periodic rebalancing
Algorithmic market making	Manage multiple positions, adjust ranges programmatically	Highest potential return, highest operational cost
Token issuers	Seed initial liquidity to bootstrap a tradable market	One-time setup, long-term hold

For a detailed treatment, see LP Profitability and Impermanent Loss.

Developers

All contracts are open-source and permissionless. Common integration patterns include:

Custom frontends and dashboards — trading interfaces, portfolio trackers, analytics
Wallet-native swaps — embedded swap functionality via the SDK
Aggregation layers — routing engines that query multiple pools and protocols
Novel DeFi primitives — using pools as building blocks for lending, structured products, or derivatives

See the contract reference and SDK guides to get started.