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: 13 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: on every supported chain, a 1 bp base plus 80% of reference-quote improvement on volatile pairs (99 bps cap), or 50% on stable pairs (20 bps cap). 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 0.03% / 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-operated chain, volatile pair	0.10 USDC base (0.01%)	Trader receives 20% until Ophis's 99 bps capture cap binds; all improvement above the cap goes to the trader
Ophis on CoW-hosted chains	0.30 USDC fixed (0.03%)	Ophis's 80%/99 bps capture applies, plus CoW Protocol's upstream improvement fee
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 a 0.10 USDC (0.01%) base on every supported chain, plus 50% of reference-quote improvement capped at 2.00 USDC. It charges 0.13 USDC fixed 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 schedule is published per chain: solver-aligned and capped on every supported chain, with separate upstream CoW fees on hosted chains.

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).

Where the order settles determines how improvement is shared:

On Optimism, Unichain, and Robinhood Chain, Ophis retains 80% of reference-quote improvement on volatile pairs, capped at 99 bps of volume, or 50% on stable pairs, capped at 20 bps. The trader receives the remainder and all improvement above the applicable cap.
On the 10 CoW-hosted chains, the same Ophis capture applies first: 80% of reference-quote improvement on volatile pairs, capped at 99 bps of volume, or 50% on stable pairs, capped at 20 bps. CoW Protocol also applies its separate upstream policy: 50% of quote improvement, capped at 0.98% of volume. The trader receives what remains after both independently capped policies, plus all improvement beyond their applicable caps.

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, Unichain, and Robinhood Chain, 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	13 EVM chains + Solana + Bitcoin (via NEAR Intents)	EVM + Solana (via NEAR Intents); no Bitcoin	EVM + Solana	EVM only
Fee model	Every supported chain: 1 bp Ophis base + 80% of volatile improvement (99 bps cap), or 50% of stable improvement (20 bps cap); hosted chains additionally pay upstream CoW fees	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)	Trader receives the remainder after the capped Ophis capture on every chain; hosted chains additionally follow CoW's upstream policy	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

What "intent-based" means​

Ophis is built on CoW Protocol​

Core differences​

Natural-language input vs token-picker​

Cross-chain scope​

Fee transparency​

Where the surplus goes​

Agent-first API​

Where each excels​

Trade-offs, stated plainly​

Reference table​

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