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George Hristov

On July 21st, 2023, After a successful  [governance vote](https://app.nexusmutual.io/governance/view?proposalId=197)  from Nexus Mutual, CoW Swap processed a  [large trade for the insurance protocol](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1682450015237857280?s=20)  using the exchange’s signature intent-based trading design and MEV protection.

## Trade Details

Nexus Mutual swapped 14,390 ETH from its capital pool for an equivalent amount in rETH. They did so in two separate orders, the first order swapped  [250 ETH for 231.8 rETH](https://explorer.cow.fi/orders/0x29a83c4990db493b7fbf47ed821288340b4e9394524b1da151251d274d64e150cafea5c050e74a21c11af78c927e17853153097d64baae44?tab=overview)  and the second order swapped  [14,140 ETH for 13,117.148 rETH](https://explorer.cow.fi/orders/0x5e84d3e19341b77c362f37e706b153e460deb929d850bec7d9697a631fe4596fcafea5c050e74a21c11af78c927e17853153097d64bab666?tab=overview).

The overall order stats:

-   **USD value of the trade**: $27.3 million
-   **Minimum asset amount**: 13,362 rETH
-   **Maximum asset amount**: 13,400 rETH
-   **Amount the DAO received**: 13,409.04 rETH

## Why CoW Swap?

CoW Swap’s solver competition ensured that Nexus Mutual received the best possible execution price, even after announcing the trade details publicly in a governance proposal ahead of time.

CoW Swap provided several benefits for this trade:

1.  Protection from attack vectors caused by the delayed execution
2.  A limit order that guarantees some minimum amount for the assets
3.  Minting rETH through CoW Swap directly, instead of swapping for the liquidity on the market

For this swap, Nexus Mutual chose the Chainlink oracle as their price checker, guaranteeing that they would receive no less than the minimum specified in the governance proposal.

## CoW Swap: The leader in DAO trading

The largest DAO trades take place on CoW Swap, and the exchange is single-handedly responsible for more than 30% of all DAO trades. Check out  [CoW Swap for DAOs](https://blog.cow.fi/cow-swap-for-daos-8d67831c2a13)  to learn why DAOs such as  [Aave](https://blog.cow.fi/aave-trade-breakdown-e17a7563d7ba),  [ENS](https://blog.cow.fi/ens-trade-breakdown-a8eb00ddd8c0), and more trust CoW Swap with their large trades.

If you’re a DAO looking to make a large trade on CoW Swap, get in touch with us on  [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)  or through our  [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/cowprotocol). You can check out CoW Swap for yourself  [here](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=NexusM-article).

## About CoW DAO
CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬 [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/) | 📊 [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol) | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)






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The smartest DAOs trust CoW Swap with their most-important trades


Nexus Mutual Trade Breakdown

## TL;DR

-   During the month of  **June**, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of  **$1.05 billion**, and generated a surplus of  **$5.8 million**
-   In exciting news, CoW Protocol launched the  [Tally Recipe for CoW Swap](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1671935101255688192), improved  [transaction bundling on Safes](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1666445091399933953?s=20), launched a  [brand new token page](https://cow.fi/tokens), and much more
-   In terms of Governance, CoW DAO executed CIPS 25, 26, and 27

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of  **$1.05B.**

![1-june-2023.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_june_2023_498a813c10.webp)

This month, the top 3 batches worth highlighting are the following:

-   **Batch with the highest % of CoW trades (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x531af4533af13645bb4fb54a6d4d4af75821257d6def1a0712482546f55909a9?tab=graph&vis=transfers)**)**. The total batch volume was  **$76K**, and it was created by three traders who were perfectly CoWed for  **91.8%**  of their volume. One trader was buying  **USDC-USDT,**  another trader was buying  **USDT-USDC**, and the last trader was selling  **USDC-USDT**.

![2-june-2023.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_june_2023_adad65cb9c.webp)

-   **Batch containing the highest volume (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x4469a8843ecdee0805daada813573576c2d5b31f9aedcf651d3569fb6307d4e0?tab=graph&vis=transfers)**):**  The total batch volume was  **$8.8M** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **USDT**  **to**  **USDC**.


![3-june-2023.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_june_2023_e17114917d.webp)

-   **Batch with the highest amount of surplus (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xe99ff4114f37ce9cb6af40636084c125b11ab4a98f1fdab5c7c353350e7a5c25/?tab=graph&vis=transfers)**):**  The total batch volume was  **$800K** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **USDC**  **to**  **DAI**. This trader achieved the largest surplus for the month of  **June**, by getting  **80K DAI**  extra (**11%**  surplus).


![4-june-2023.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_june_2023_9c8fb4e4c8.webp)

During the month of  **June**, the top 10 traders traded a total of **$77M**.

![5-june-2023.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_june_2023_d2b3f40d9b.webp)

## Solvers

![6-june-2023.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_june_2023_afc3f98e04.webp)

You can find all of the solver statistics in the following table. Looking at this table, we can see that, on average for the month of  **June,**  solvers generated a total of  **$5.8M**, which is money in the pockets of traders. The highest generated surplus by a single solver was $**1.8M**.

![7-june-2023.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_june_2023_59f0fabb7a.webp)

## Governance

It has been a hectic month in terms of governance! The CoW cannot be stopped 💪

### Executed Proposals

This month we executed three important proposals

-   [CIP-25: Operational CoW DAO Safe](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x79fdcc006030d50ab0ffe0ffd7c474a409eb70448d1c8eba58919af7559a876e)
-   [CIP-26: Solver bond funds switch](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x1dd77a563722ac783c42276cee76754bf3e78a8895bf9dae7ac6fe5da61634f7)
-   [CIP-27: Incentives Mechanism for the Price Estimation Competition](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x64e061568e86e8d2eec344d4a892e4126172b992cabe59a0b24c51c4c7e6cc33)

### Draft Proposals

This month, there was one new proposal asking for feedback before moving into the next phase, a final CIP, in its current form.

-   [CIP-Draft: Incentives mechanism for the Price Estimation Competition](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-draft-incentives-mechanism-for-the-price-estimation-competition/1718/1)

### Technical Discussions

As an “agora” for technical topics on batch auctions or CoW Protocol related topics, the forum surfaced some very interesting posts.

1.  [Path to L2 Deployments](https://forum.cow.fi/t/path-to-l2-deployments/1774/1)

Make sure to read them and leave comments — your feedback is highly appreciated and will help move forward these important topics. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to the CoW DAO, make sure to use the following  [template](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-0-template/28).

## CoWmunity News

-   Launched the  [Tally Recipe for CoW Swap](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1671935101255688192)  which allows your DAO to embed a swap action in your governance proposal
-   Took  [transaction bundling on Safes](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1666445091399933953?s=20)  a step further, enabling wrap, approve, and swap in a single click
-   Revamped the  [CoW Grants Program website](https://cow-dao-grants.super.site/)  — take a look
-   Saw early results of the Balancer discount for CoW Swap solvers with  [massive savings on a trade](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1668973199340748800)
-   Shipped a  [token page](https://cow.fi/tokens)  that helps traders find out about each token CoW Swap supports
-   Published an article on  [Effective Treasury Management for DAOs](https://blog.cow.fi/effective-treasury-management-for-daos-84bf17b8d834)  alongside CoW DAO’streasury manager,  [Karpatkey](https://www.karpatkey.com/)
-   Integrated  [Sismo badges](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1669721583873822720?s=20)  that you can use to claim swag at ETH CC
-   Alex Vinyas  [gave a talk on Order Flow Auctions in the MEV Supply chain](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1667048909498359808) at Prague DeFi Summit
-   Integrated  [Trust Wallet with CoW Swap](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1673314050380529666)
-   Participated in an  [MEV Protection Twitter Space](https://twitter.com/blocknative/status/1673420044615946241?s=20)  hosted by Blocknative
-   Received a  [Grants proposal](https://forum.cow.fi/t/grant-application-composablecow-sdk-docs/1698)  for a new “Smart Order” framework called Composable CoW
-   Receive  [another Grants proposal](https://forum.cow.fi/t/grant-application-for-audit-of-composablecow-smart-contracts/1743)  for a second audit for Composable CoW and Extensible fallback handler smart contracts
-   Published several articles:  [What are CoWs on CoW Swap?](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1674087831696994305?s=20),  [What is a sandwich attack and how can you protect yourself?](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1669344064213491716?s=20),  [Grants Wave 2 Recap](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1664633266878414850?s=20)

## Product Updates

**Backend**

The backend team has been working hard to improve the product infrastructure. In  **June**, we:

-   Made progress on a new app data format
-   Brought the following internal hackathon projects to production: Surplus modal, and Arak (smart contract event indexer)

**Frontend**

The frontend team has been pushing hard for several improvements in the UI front, as well as the overall UI infrastructure. In  **June**, we:

-   Launched a new version of the  [CoW Explorer](https://explorer.cow.fi/)  that shows a new node (Buffers)
-   Released the bundling ETH Flow
-   Made progress on the TWAP interface including cancelations, incorporating orders table, and decoding pending safe transactions
-   Worked on internal hackathon projects including a surplus modal, widget improvements, a “Have I been MEV’d” page, and a trade graph
-   Worked on trying to implement Wallet Connect V2, but due to the lack of wallet support this has been put on hold.

## Open Job Positions

The CoW Protocol team is currently not hiring.

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

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Welcome back to another CoW Update, where we break down the most notable developments of the last few weeks at CoW Protocol.


CoW Protocol June 2023 Highlights

MEV, or maximal extractable value, is a form of price exploitation that acts as a “hidden tax” on Ethereum transactions.

To date, MEV has caused over a billion dollars in losses for everyday traders, especially beginners who often don’t know how to protect themselves.

![1-understanding-mev-protection.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_understanding_mev_protection_5c36d92e50.webp)

In this article we’ll take a look at what MEV is and explore some of the popular protection solutions.

## What is MEV protection?

MEV protection refers to a broad set of strategies that keep users safe from price manipulation when trading, providing liquidity, minting NFTs, and more.

### What exactly are you protecting against?

To understand MEV, we must first understand how Ethereum transactions are processed.

![2-understanding-mev-protection.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_understanding_mev_protection_9bb7157306.webp)

When a user places an order, it initially gets submitted to a holding area for pending Ethereum transactions known as the “mempool.” Transactions in the mempool are public, meaning that MEV bots (known as “searchers”) can monitor them for exploitation opportunities. MEV relies on reordering transactions from the order in which they were submitted to a new, more profitable order.

To better understand this process, let’s trace the flow of a sandwich attack — the worst type of MEV.

![3-understanding-mev-protection.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_understanding_mev_protection_b1a61b2259.webp)

Essentially, traders place orders on  [AMMs](/learn/cow-protocol-glossary#:~:text=amm)  by designating a  [slippage tolerance](/learn/cow-protocol-glossary#:~:text=Slippage%20Tolerance). Searchers can exploit these orders by placing similar trades before and after the user trade, manipulating the price of the assets on the AMM and forcing the victim trade to execute at a higher price.

Searchers pocket this difference in price for themselves. Their only cost is the amount of money they spend bribing the Ethereum block builders to order the transactions in a specific way.

To learn more about the different types of MEV, check out our articles on  [sandwich attacks](/learn/what-is-a-sandwich-attack-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself),  [frontrunning](/learn/what-is-frontrunning), and  [backrunning](/learn/what-is-backrunning-mev-attacks-explained).

Now let’s take a look at how you can protect yourself from MEV.

## Slippage tolerance and MEV protection

The most basic defense against MEV is setting a low slippage tolerance.

Since MEV relies on slippage for price manipulation, transactions with a lower slippage tolerance give searchers less room to exploit trades.

For users who aren’t utilizing any other MEV protection tools, setting a lower slippage tolerance can be a good first line of defense, however it’s by no means a complete solution. Setting the slippage tolerance too low often results in failed transactions. Even with optimal slippage, MEV bots may still be able to extract value from your trades.

## RPC endpoint tools for MEV protection

A better protection method is to install an MEV protection RPC endpoint.

A Remote Procedure Call (RPC) endpoint is an intermediate layer that routes transactions from a user’s wallet to the blockchain itself. Transactions pass through RPC endpoints before getting to the mempool, so RPCs can provide additional functionality across any blockchain application or protocol.

Normally, RPCs are a boring piece of blockchain infrastructure. Recently, however, specialized RPCs have begun incorporating extra security guarantees for transactions before they reach the blockchain.

### MEV Blocker

One of the most popular specialized RPC endpoints is  [MEV Blocker](https://mevblocker.io/).

As the name suggests, MEV Blocker provides protection against MEV across all of Ethereum. The RPC works by managing a permissionless network of searchers and hiding transactions from the public mempool. These searchers cannot frontrun or sandwich user transactions. Instead, they capture value through  [backrunning](/learn/what-is-backrunning-mev-attacks-explained).

Anytime a searcher backruns a user’s transaction, the searcher keeps up to 10% of the value and send the other 90% back to the user as a rebate. So even when a transaction leaves money on the table, MEV Blocker puts it back into the pockets of users.

MEV Blocker provides protection for any type of Ethereum transaction (not just swaps), and it works with all Ethereum wallets. Install the MEV Blocker RPC endpoint by following the instructions  [here](https://mevblocker.io/).

## Decentralized applications and MEV protection

While RPC endpoints provide significant MEV protection, the most complete protection comes at the application layer.

As MEV has become more prevalent, decentralized applications (especially decentralized exchanges — DEX’s) have begun offering creative protection solutions to users. For example, many DEXs offer an “auto-slippage” feature which determines the optimal slippage for user trades, reducing the chances of price exploitation.

### Native MEV protection on CoW Protocol

CoW Protocol is a meta DEX aggregator that finds the best prices for trades and provides comprehensive MEV protection. The protocol uses a unique trading mechanism that relies on batch auctions and  [intents](/learn/cow-protocol-glossary#:~:text=Intent%20to%20Trade)  to achieve the best outcomes for users.

![4-understanding-mev-protection.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_understanding_mev_protection_cf34f8959e.webp)

Starting at the application level, CoW Protocol provides end-to-end MEV protection through its unique protocol design:

**Delegated Trade Execution**: On CoW Protocol, bonded third parties known as “solvers” execute transactions on behalf of users. Solvers source liquidity across multiple DEX’s and even offchain liquidity sources to find the best prices for any given trade. Solvers also execute transactions on behalf of users, meaning they are never exposed to the blockchain directly.

**Coincidences of Wants**  **(CoWs)**: Thanks to CoW Protocol’s batching mechanism, trades may be matched using peer-to-peer liquidity in a  [Coincidence of Wants (CoW)](/learn/what-are-cows-on-cow-swap). This method of trading bypasses AMMs, reducing fees and preventing MEV.

**Uniform Clearing Prices**: Another benefit of batching is that duplicate trade pairs within a given batch clear for the same price. For example, if multiple users are trading ETH and USDC in the same batch, the assets will execute for the same price across the various trades. This makes transaction reordering useless, removing the opportunity for price exploitation.

Thanks to a powerful combination of delegated trade execution, batch auctions, and protected transaction flow through MEV Blocker, CoW Protocol users benefit from thorough MEV protection on all trades.

## CoW DAO protects you from MEV

MEV is a billion dollar problem for the Ethereum ecosystem. CoW DAO builds products to protect users from negative outcomes for transactions of all types and sizes.

DeFi traders can rely on  [CoW Swap](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=understanding-mev-article)  as the most trusted decentralized exchange when it comes to MEV protection. For all other use-cases, including liquidity providing, NFT trading, and more,  [MEV Blocker](https://mevblocker.io/)  provides extensive MEV protection anywhere on Ethereum.

If you want to learn more about MEV, check out “[MEV Transparency: Ensuring Fairness In DeFi Markets](/learn/mev-transparency-ensuring-fairness-in-defi-markets)” and “[How CoW Swap solves the MEV problem](/learn/how-cow-swap-solves-the-mev-problem).”

Safe trading!

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MEV is a billion-dollar problem, but many Ethereum users still don’t know how to protect themselves.


Understanding MEV Protection

A cow is a large, domesticated animal that’s been used as livestock for centuries…

But a CoW — now that’s a totally different thing!

The acronym “CoW” stands for “Coincidence of Wants” and it’s the founding mechanism behind the creation of CoW Swap, as well as the inspiration for our cow theme! A Coincidence of Wants is an economic phenomenon where two parties swap assets with one another peer-to-peer. On CoW Swap, a Coincidence of Wants occurs when two (or more) traders swap cryptocurrencies with each other without having to use on-chain liquidity.

To illustrate the concept better, let’s look at an example.

## How to Have a CoW

Let’s say Meredith wants to buy 0.5 ETH in exchange for $1,000 DAI. At the same time, another trader, Eli, wants to swap 0.75 ETh for $1,500 DAI.

On a traditional exchange such as Uniswap, Meredith and Eli would both tap an ETH / DAI liquidity pool in order to make their trades.

![1-how-to-have-a-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_how_to_have_a_cow_40e7bc1ad9.webp)

On CoW Swap, however, there’s another possibility. CoW Swap orders start out as signed “intent to trade” messages that get batched together before getting sent to on-chain liquidity sources like Uniswap. As a result, CoW Swap can match orders peer-to-peer when the opportunity arises.

If you notice, Meredith and Eli each have what the other wants. This means that Meredith can give her ETH to Eli directly, and he can give his DAI to her in return as a peer-to-peer trade that does not need to go through a liquidity pool. In this way, Meredith can have her trade fully filled without having to ever use on-chain liquidity! This saves on liquidity provider fees and gas costs, avoids slippage, and prevents MEV attacks.

![2-how-to-have-a-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_how_to_have_a_cow_80b25b7aea.webp)

So Meredith walks away with $1,000 of Eli’s DAI, and she gives him her 0.5 ETH.

You’ll notice here that Eli is seeking $1,500 DAI — which is $500 more than what Meredith gave him. In this case, assuming there is no one else in Eli’s batch who can do a second CoW trade with him, Eli’s trade will have to be routed to an on-chain liquidity pool through a service like Uniswap or Balancer in order to fill the remainder of his trade.

CoW Swap automatically matches Coincidences of Wants and routes unfilled orders through the most optimal on-chain liquidity. CoWs are possible due to CoW Swap’s delegated trading model that uses  [solvers](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/tutorials/solvers)  to execute your trades through the most optimal trading path.

## The Benefits of CoWs

CoWs do a lot: they protect you from MEV, and you save on all kinds of fees including liquidity provider fees, gas fees, and slippage …all with no methane released into the atmosphere ;)

### Lower Fees

The main advantage of CoWs is that they bypass liquidity provider fees and save on gas fees, meaning you get a better price for your trades. When you’re swapping an asset directly with another trader, you are not tapping into on-chain liquidity from a protocol like Uniswap, so you do not have to pay their LP fees and your peer-to-peer trade costs less in gas than interacting with smart contracts. Additionally, certain types of CoWs bundle orders together in order to send them to an on-chain liquidity source, meaning that your gas is also cheaper.

On CoW Swap, these savings get passed on to you in the form of lower prices for your trades!

### MEV Protection

MEV, or “maximally extractable value” is a hidden tax on Ethereum trades that can result in failed transactions and unfavorable prices. Any time you submit a transaction to the blockchain, it may get re-ordered and hijacked by opportunistic traders looking to make a buck off your alpha (learn more about how CoW Swap solves MEV  [here](https://medium.com/@cow-protocol/how-cow-swap-solves-the-mev-problem-fd35b0127390)).

CoWs protect you from MEV because they are peer-to-peer swaps that don’t rely on on-chain liquidity. This means that there are no opportunities for your trade to get hijacked, since you’re interacting with another trader, rather than going through a liquidity pool. In other words, CoWs make transaction ordering irrelevant when interacting with AMMs as they are simple, peer-to-peer trades among traders themselves.

### Less Price Impact

Price impact is a major concern for large trades or for assets with relatively low liquidity. Whenever a trade impacts a liquidity pool enough to change the prices of the assets in the pool, it causes a “price impact”.

If you attempt to purchase $5,000 worth of BNB tokens, for example, but there isn’t enough liquidity to fill your entire order at a fixed market price, you may experience a price impact that causes you to get $4,950 worth of BNB tokens for the $5,000 that you pay.

CoWs alleviate price impact for large trades. If part of your trade is matched peer-to-peer with another trade, you will need to use less on-chain liquidity, thus reducing the impact that your trade will have on asset prices.

## Types of CoWs

CoWs are possible thanks to CoW Swap’s delegated trading model. On CoW Swap, users sign an “intent to trade” message, rather than submitting a transaction, when initiating a trade. This signed message allows for all sorts of order optimizations including CoWs, price improvements, gas optimizations, and much more that’s not possible when directly submitting transactions.

There are several different types of CoWs, each with varying complexity and levels of price savings.

### Simple CoW

![3-benefits-of-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_benefits_of_cow_150c8f788e.webp)

The example of Meredith and Eli at the beginning of this article is an instance of a simple CoW. In a simple CoW, two traders that each have an asset the other wants come together to execute a peer-to-peer swap.

In contrast, on Uniswap this trade would require using a liquidity pool:

![4-benefits-of-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_benefits_of_cow_281b830815.webp)

### Batching CoW

![5-benefits-of-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_benefits_of_cow_68a360bd82.webp)

Another type of CoW is the “batching” CoW trade that occurs whenever two traders are trading the same asset. For example, if two traders are looking to buy ETH in exchange for USDC, CoW Swap batches their trade together and executes a single on-chain transaction from a liquidity pool like Uniswap for the combined amount of ETH for both trades.

This saves on fees since, instead of having to execute the transactions individually and spend gas twice, the protocol batches the trades together into a single transaction, reducing the overall gas cost.

Here is what this trade would look like on a traditional liquidity pool through Uniswap. As you can see, there is a redundancy that’s saved when trading on CoW Swap.

![6-benefits-of-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_benefits_of_cow_3391fc0925.webp)

### Intermediate CoW

![7-benefits-of-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_benefits_of_cow_79e8dd4812.webp)

CoW Swap’s delegated trading model allows for gas optimizations through “intermediate CoWs.”

An intermediate CoW is similar to a simple CoW, but with the caveat that it is not a perfect A-B and B-A settlement. This type of CoW uses intermediate “hops” that both trades have to do in order to complete.

For example, in order to exchange COW for USDT, your trade might first have to go COW to ETH and then ETH to USDT. If, at the same time, another trader is trading USDT for CRV, they will go through the opposite trading route: USDT to ETH and then ETH to CRV. In both cases, there is an opportunity for a Coincidence of Wants in the intermediate leg (ETH to USDT and USDT to ETH).

Here is what this trade would look like on a traditional liquidity pool through Uniswap.

![8-benefits-of-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_benefits_of_cow_2e078ec2ef.webp)

### Multidimensional CoW, AKA a “Ring Trade”

In some batches, there are multiple orders which can all combine together in multiple Coincidences of Wants. In fact, one of the most interesting use cases of CoWs is what’s known as a “ring trade”. Ring trades enable a true barter-economy style of swapping. Traders can swap unrelated assets without relying on external liquidity.

Let’s take a look at an example of a Ring Trade:

![9-benefits-of-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/9_benefits_of_cow_96c53012be.webp)

In the above scenario, we have four parties:

-   Eli
-   Edith
-   Lily
-   Chow

Trading four assets

-   ETH
-   USDT
-   COW
-   DAI

As you can see, each party wants to swap one of their assets for one of the others in the batch. In this case, however, there is no “perfect” Coincidence of Wants — where one party has exactly what the other party needs — instead, we can get everyone what they want by trading around the “ring”.

Eli wants to trade his ETH for DAI. He sends his ETH to Edith, who gives her USDT to Lily who gives her COW to Chow, and finally, Chow gives his DAI to Eli. In this way, Eli’s trade is filled by going through a three-party Coincidence of Wants ring trade. This logic holds for the other three participants as well:

1.  Edith gets her ETH from Eli, even though she has no DAI (the asset he really wants) to give him in return
2.  Lily trades COW for USDT using Chow, Eli, and Edit as proxies
3.  Chow does the same thing for his DAI to COW trade

Ring trades are a powerful use-case of CoWs that can occur whenever a batch of orders gets large enough.

On Uniswap, this trade would be much more complicated (and expensive!)

![10-benefits-of-cow.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/10_benefits_of_cow_924199f399.webp)

## CoWs: Your Ticket to Better Prices

CoW Swap turns economic theory into reality by utilizing CoWs (Coincidences of Wants) to optimize prices and enable safer trades.

The protocol relies on Order Flow Auctions which allow users to sign composable intents to trade rather than committing to a specific transaction. Through intents,  [solvers](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/tutorials/solvers)  can use multiple sources of liquidity, compose trades together, and perform all sorts of optimizations. This is what makes CoWs possible!

Give CoWs a shot by  [using CoW Swap for your next trade](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=cow-article). Happy trading!

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An overview of Coincidences of Wants (CoWs) & the benefits they bring to CoW Swap traders — it’s not just a meme!


What are CoWs on CoW Swap?

[MEV bots](https://www.blocknative.com/blog/mev-and-creating-a-basic-arbitrage-bot-on-ethereum-mainnet)  monitor pending transactions in the mempool and place their transaction ahead of others, capitalizing on the order of transactions within a block. This approach allows them to gain a significant edge, profiting from traders placing transactions. Frontrunning occurs when an MEV bot monitors the mempool for a trader’s pending transaction. Spotting a potential trade, the bot quickly duplicates the users transaction so that they can be the one to get the tokens or the opportunity that the user detected.

This issue permeates various blockchain ecosystems — from decentralized exchanges to non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces.

According to recent  [data](https://dune.com/jhackworth/mevmevmev), over 2.7 million MEV transactions have been processed on Uniswap alone. This alarming statistic underscores the widespread and high-stakes nature of MEV exploitation.

## How frontrunning works

Frontrunning takes advantage of the open nature of the blockchain mempool, as anyone can view transactions. MEV Bots exploit this transparency to hijack trades. Here’s a basic rundown of the process:

1.  **Monitoring Pending Transactions:**  The first step involves monitoring the blockchain network’s mempool, a holding area for pending transactions. Here, frontrunners, who are often sophisticated bots, scan the mempool to identify transactions that can carry significant value that they want to snatch away or that could influence the price of a particular asset
2.  **Selecting Profitable Transactions:**  The frontrunner will analyze the potential market impact once such a transaction is identified. For instance, if a large buy order for a specific token is detected, the frontrunner knows that this transaction could increase the asset’s price once processed
3.  **Placing a New Transaction:** The frontrunner will initiate their buy order for the same asset, intending to get their transaction processed before the initially detected transaction. They typically give the validators a higher “tip” to execute their transaction first in the block in comparison to the target transaction

### Frontrunning examples

A notable example of DeFi frontrunning involves the notorious MEV bot named “[jaredfromsubway.eth](https://www.theblock.co/post/230218/jaredfromsubway-mev-bot).” In one case, a user,  [0x3a7822](https://zeromev.org/block?num=17508508), intended to trade 2 ETH for another token, $BOB. This trade was noticed by the bot jaredfromsubway.eth, which continuously monitors the mempool for transactions it could take advantage of.

Once the transaction entered the mempool, Jaredfromsubway.eth quickly executed its own transaction to buy $BOB with ETH, strategically placing it as the first in the block, and knowing that he would get the assets at a discount as the transactions behind will pamp the pricer. MEV allows validators to prioritize transactions that are of the most value to them. Consequently, the bot’s transaction, being the first one in the block, was confirmed ahead of the user’s transaction.

![1-frontrunning.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_frontrunning_6077287d3c.webp)

The frontrunning attack triggered an increase in the price of $BOB tokens due to the additional demand created before the user’s transaction was processed. When the user’s original order of 145M $BOB was executed, it was conducted at this now-inflated price, leading to user 0x3a7822 receiving way fewer $BOB tokens, hence losing out on the value they could have otherwise captured.

Jaredfromsubway.eth completed its MEV attack by  [selling](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xff31ba1a8a61933e0093bc4afba95018929e9e1599fec204a3f503c6b7851cb1)  its $BOB tokens at an increased price, resulting in a profit, a second move that made this MEV attack a  [sandwich attack](https://blog.cow.fi/what-is-a-sandwich-attack-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself-b101c9a9b9b3). In this scenario, the price slippage triggered by the frontrunning bot meant that user 0x3a7822 encountered a worse trade-off, ultimately making a loss while the MEV bot profited — an estimated gain of 0.1 ETH.

Another form of frontrunning would have been for example, if user, 0x3a7822 identified an liquidation opportunity faster than anyone else and sent its transaction to the mempool to get the discounted assets from the liquidation in the first place, then Jaredfromsubway.eth would have seen this and would have replaced the users transactions with the transaction of its own, but with a higher gas fee, and thus more likelyhood to get processed faster, and effectively stealing the opportunity of capturing value away from the user.

### How Harmful is Frontrunning?

While frontrunning may seem harmless or even clever to some, it can adversely affect individual traders and compromise the overall integrity of the Ethereum network. Here’s how:

1.  **Impact on Traders**: Frontrunning disrupts the fair operation of financial markets. By exploiting pending transactions, frontrunners manipulate market conditions to their benefit. This can lead to distorted prices, impacting regular traders who abide by market rules. What’s more, these traders miss out on the value they would have otherwise derived from their trades. But most importantly, frontrunning attacks prevent users from receiving the value of the trading opportunity they identified
2.  **Long-term Market Consequences**: Over time, persistent frontrunning can erode market confidence. As traders realize they are consistently at a disadvantage due to frontrunning, they may lose faith in the integrity of the market and choose to leave. This could result in diminished market participation and liquidity, both of which are critical for overall market health and efficiency
3.  **Network Effects**: Frontrunning can also have wider implications for the underlying network. It can cause network congestion, since unnecessary transactions in a block slow down transaction processing times

CoW Swap takes a firm stance against all forms of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV), including frontrunning, as they are detrimental to traders and the wider Ethereum ecosystem. CoW Swap was built to cultivate a fair and transparent trading environment that best serves the interests of all market participants.

### How to protect against frontrunning?

Mitigating frontrunning and other forms of MEV can pose a challenge, given the transparent and permissionless nature of the Ethereum blockchain. However, CoW Swap gives traders the necessary tools to outsmart the MEV bots:

1.  **Batch Auctions**: Instead of executing orders immediately, CoW Swap orders are gathered and grouped into collections known as “batches.”  [Solvers](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/tutorials/solvers), or the algorithms that provide an order settlement solution for a batch, compete to deliver optimized solutions. This batch auction method ensures all trades within a batch share the same uniform clearing price, preventing MEV Bots from reordering trades. Through batch auctions, CoW Swap affords traders the opportunity to pool liquidity among their orders, enabling users to trade directly with each other or access specialized markets to complete transactions that would otherwise be impossible to do in a peer-to-peer manner — this is known as  [Coincidence of Wants](https://blog.cow.fi/what-are-cows-on-cow-swap-e72baaa4678a)  (CoW)
2.  **MEV Blocker**:  [MEV Blocker](https://mevblocker.io/)  is a straightforward solution to the MEV problem. It is an RPC endpoint that protects all types of transactions from MEV. MEV Blocker organizes an auction among searchers, who are given the chance to backrun your transactions and forward up to 90% of the backrun value to the user. In exchange, they protect you from both frontrunning and sandwich attacks
3.  [**Use CoW Swap**](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=frontrunning-article)**:** CoW Swap is a meta DEX aggregator that uses batch auctions and facilitates an efficient trading process, preventing all forms of MEV, including frontrunning

### The CoW approach to frontrunning

CoW Swap distinguishes itself in the trading ecosystem with its innovative and comprehensive approach to combating frontrunning and other MEV tactics, thereby creating a safer trading environment for users. The platform has meticulously crafted multiple layers of protection, each targeting a distinct aspect of the MEV issue.

The initial line of defense is  **Delegated Trade Execution**. In conventional DeFi platforms, every transaction a user initiates is instantaneously visible in the public mempool, providing an opportunity for searchers to exploit it. As opposed to other exchanges, on CoW Swap, users sign an “intent to trade” which protects them from directly interacting with the mempool. CoW Swap directs all intents through a network of decentralized ‘[solvers](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/tutorials/solvers).’ These solvers are responsible for securing the best execution price for your trades, while also shielding you from direct exposure to the public mempool, effectively making you undetectable to MEV bots. Moreover, CoW Swap harnesses the power of  [‘Coincidence of Wants](https://blog.cow.fi/what-are-cows-on-cow-swap-e72baaa4678a)’ (CoW). This allows the platform to match orders off-chain, fostering peer-to-peer trades that not only save on gas and liquidity provider fees but also substantially reduce the risk of MEV attacks by circumventing public liquidity pools. CoWs that don’t rely on on-chain liquidity pools eliminate a key opportunity for MEV exploits.

The platform also introduces a  **Uniform Clearing Price**  for all orders in a batch. In a typical decentralized exchange, simultaneous trades clear at marginally different prices in the same block due to sequential transaction processing. This provides an opening for MEV attacks. CoW Swap counters this by ensuring all orders within the same batch auction are settled at the same clearing price within a block. As a result, the order of transactions within a batch becomes irrelevant, effectively preventing MEV attacks and giving users in the batch a fair price.

CoW Swap’s strategy to tackle frontrunning hinges on eliminating opportunities for searchers to exploit trades. This helps maintain the integrity of user transactions and safeguards user value. By leveraging its unique batching technology, CoW Swap remains resilient against frontrunning and other MEV attacks.

### Trade safe from MEV on CoW Swap

Given the severity and frequency of MEV attacks, protecting your trades from MEV should be a top priority. CoW Swap offers unparalleled protection with its pioneering anti-MEV features, making it an invaluable tool for every trader.

Get started with CoW Swap by  [placing your first trade](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=frontrunning-article)  and enjoy the freedom and peace of mind of the best prices and the best MEV protection!

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Frontrunning is a crypto strategy exploiting blockchain’s transparency to extract value from a transaction.


What is Frontrunning

To celebrate the  [recent launch of TWAP orders](https://blog.cow.fi/cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-d5583135b472), the CoW team is running a trading raffle with several prizes up for grabs. To enter,  **all you have to do is make at least one TWAP trade during the month of September (TWAP-tember)**!

At the end of the month, the CoW team will select one Safe address to receive the grand prize:

> **_🏆 FREE CoW Swap orders for the month of October (aka, Up-tober_**_📈_**_)*_**

That’s right, Swap for free all month long… how’s that for greener pastures?

But we’re not done milking the fun, while only one lucky winner will receive the grand prize, there’s still more up for grabs:

-   **⌚5 people**  will receive CoW Swap-branded watches, to help time your trades
-   **💳 10 people**  will receive custom CoW Swap-branded  [Gnosis Pay](https://gnosispay.com/)  cards

Keep in mind, Ethereum mainnet TWAPs start at a minimum of $5k per part, but you can  [TWAP on Gnosis Chain](https://swap.cow.fi/#/100/advanced/WETH?utm_campaign=twap-tember-medium)  with only $5 per part! **In fact, TWAPs on Gnosis Chain have lower fees (thanks to lower gas costs) and lower $$ minimums than mainnet** (which should also come in handy for Safe deployment).

So what are you waiting for anon? Grab your  [Safe](https://safe.global/)  wallet and head over to  [CoW Swap](https://swap.cow.fi/#/1/advanced/WETH?utm_campaign=twap-tember-medium)  to get your TWAP on. If you’re new to TWAP, we’ve created a handy  [how-to guide](https://blog.cow.fi/how-to-use-cow-swaps-twap-orders-via-safe-wallet-1a0854484dfb)  to help you with your first trade.

## 🐮 Let TWAP-tember begin! 🐮

Visit  [CoW Swap today to TWAP](https://swap.cow.fi/#/1/advanced/WETH?utm_campaign=twap-tember-medium)  your way to the top.

The winning addresses will be announced on the  [CoW Swap Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)  so keep an eye on it for instructions on how the winners can claim their physical prizes!

_Terms & Conditions: To receive waived fees, orders must take place between the 1st and 31st of October, 2023. A maximum of $5000 in fees will be refunded._

**———————————————————————**

**UPDATE:**  The winners of TWAP-tember have been announced!

**Grand Prize Winner:** 0x4cb5eE1ad8Bf1B9d75422f9aD086Da2F84BD91B4

**Winners of the CoW-branded Watch & Gnosis Pay Card:**

1.  0xef5e42549886b9b060ee0381a3819ecaf0fdaeda
2.  0x38fe3792cea65f37cac5474dca8fff887e6d90b1
3.  0x2a4e4ab5e6680b76e00ad4555e39d2dcca42a659
4.  0x23a02d9e5d6ad9419128663976315689204be895
5.  0xf4a82a72faf46b2c55cdad3bcf7c0c1b564bab30

**Winners of just the Gnosis Pay Card**:

1.  0x3bc0cb287f74504347d50fe3ada6d90214e6f512
2.  0x952656cb0121d79a320bb0a7188fb4abb2b5dd94
3.  0x2855159d938d09d00d4fccf42f69ccb8f5b620e2
4.  0xdb72b7dc6ddf0c95468ce19b6539b9a44e561679
5.  0x3e23fd468f65e77aea8f548ebd382e86e7a99309

Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone who participated!

To claim your prize, please  [DM us on Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)  by November 1st.

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

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Attention all traders, the CoW Swap herd is thrilled to announce TWAP-tember, the greatest trading extravaganza of the year!


Introducing TWAP-tember

_CoW Swap, a DEX trading platform, has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last few years._

_The platform has transformed substantially from its early days as a dutch auction swap to a leading authority on intents forging new ground through conditional programmatic orders. In a recent presentation, Alex Vinas, the Product Marketing Manager at CoW Swap, traced CoW Swap’s journey and offered insights into its history, pivotal developments, and the promise of the brand new_ [_Programmatic Order Framework_](/learn/introducing-the-programmatic-order-framework-from-cow-protocol) _(Please Note: At the time of the presentation, the Programmatic Order Framework was known as “Composable CoW.”)_

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6dA4V_yYn8A?si=M5UYcWadWAU5Mifo" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

_What follows is a transcript of Alex’s talk:_

## A Brief History of CoW Swap

![1-navigating-the-evolution-of-cow-swap.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_navigating_the_evolution_of_cow_swap_ebc6a318b6.webp)

Cow Swap’s journey began back when its current team was a part of Gnosis. At the time, the team was working on decentralized mechanisms for trading prediction market outcomes. It was this work that helped bring to life the famous “x*y=k” formula for AMMs back in 2017 — earlier than even the founding of Uniswap.

### Dutch Auctions

While their initial ideas were good, Gnosis recognized the vulnerabilities of the traditional AMM design and its weakness toward MEV, so the team pivoted to Dutch auctions.

However, this mechanism also came with its own set of downfalls.

It worked well for initial coin offerings and wasn’t susceptible to MEV, however it fell short when faced with the growing diversity of tokens on Ethereum. Dutch auctions also had to compromise on speed, resulting in a slow trading experience for users.

### Batch Auctions

The team realized they needed a new auction mechanism for trading large amounts. It was here that the batch auction was born.

After cycling through several different iterations of batch auction DEX’s, CoW Protocol was born in 2021. CoW Protocol was built on the learnings from earlier projects and introduced innovative features like an intents-based architecture and comprehensive MEV protection.

The product was designed to address the challenges faced by retail users, smart contract accounts, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). At the core of the protocol is a delegated trading execution model in which bonded third parties known as “solvers” handle order execution on behalf of users.

The delegated trading model of CoW Protocol offers several benefits:

-   **For retail users**, it abstracts away Ethereum complexities such as gas fees, MEV, and the need to search for the most up-to-date AMM pools
-   **For smart contract wallets,** it enables a seamless trading experience. Before CoW Swap, smart contract wallets often had their trade execution paths expire by the time they gathered signatures. Today, smart contract wallets only commit to a particular  _price_  (rather than a specific trading path), leading to more flexibility and optimizing order execution
-   **For DAOs**, features like the  [Milkman](/learn/what-is-milkman-cow-swaps-solution-for-delayed-execution-trading)  contract bridge the gap in time between a governance proposal and an on-chain swap by allowing the DAO to specify an on-chain price feed from which to pull real-time prices (rather than specifying a fixed price)

### The Path Toward Smart Contract Intents

Initially, gasless trading was limited to EOAs since smart contract wallets don’t have private keys and thus can’t sign messages. It wasn’t until the introduction of  [ERC-1271](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1271)  smart orders that gasless trading was enabled for smart contracts using a new method called “isValidSignature.” This allowed smart contracts to delegate order placement while maintaining control through interactive signature verifications.

The first implementation of smart orders in CoW Swap was the  [native ETH flow](https://medium.com/@cow-protocol/moooove-over-weth-native-eth-trading-is-now-live-on-cow-protocol-96f107e53a49)  which allowed traders to trade ETH just like they would any other ERC-20 token. The second implementation was the  [Milkman](/learn/what-is-milkman-cow-swaps-solution-for-delayed-execution-trading)  contract. Milkman protects governance-based swaps from price exploitation as users specify an on-chain data source from which to pull prices rather than specifying a fixed amount and slippage. This allows the “minOut” variable of a swap to be modular and enables much more streamlined governance-based swaps.

While ERC-1271 smart orders have advantages including conditional on-chain guarantees, they also have drawbacks: they are gas-heavy for autonomous execution, require trust in an intermediary contract holding funds, and are limited to one order per signature.

## Enter the Era of Programmatic Orders

Programmatic orders build on top of batch auctions to enable even more user-friendly, trustless, and autonomous trading.

Programmatic orders take advantage of ERC-1271 smart orders to unlock intents for smart contracts. This has been transformative for the ecosystem, as it allows smart contracts to delegate order placement while still ensuring secure and customizable trading conditions.

[The Programmatic Order Framework from CoW Protocol](/learn/introducing-the-programmatic-order-framework-from-cow-protocol)  allows users to execute unlimited smart orders in parallel, with enhanced gas efficiency and full self-custody. The Framework opens the door to a number of use-cases including automated fee collection, DAO payrolls, TWAP orders, and even private conditional orders such as stop-loss.

### Understanding the Programmatic Order Framework Architecture

Programmatic orders operate through a decentralized architecture that ensures trustless execution by holding assets in the user’s safe.

![2-navigating-the-evolution-of-cow-swap.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_navigating_the_evolution_of_cow_swap_93d6afc424.webp)

The Programmatic Order Framework involves four main customizable parameters which combine with the order handling of CoW Protocol to allow developers to deploy ANY codeable strategy.

Each conditional order has the following properties or data available at settlement:

-   _handler_  — verifies the conditional order parameters via a smart contract (Programmatic Order Framework)
-   _salt_  — allows for multiple conditional orders of the same type and data (Merkle root)
-   _staticData_  — data available to ALL discrete orders created by the conditional order
-   _offchainData_  — data optionally provided from off-chain to a discrete order

## The Future of Programmatic Orders

Programmatic Orders open a world of possibilities by allowing users to turn their Safes into autonomous traders. While the Programmatic Order Framework is currently developer-focused, it unlocks a wide range of use-cases for retail users as well. The integration of  [CoW Hooks](/learn/cow-hooks-you-are-in-control)  in the future could further enhance the user experience, combining composable smart orders with additional functionalities.

In conclusion, CoW Swap’s journey to perfect DeFi orders embodies the protocol’s commitment to users and innovation. The Programmatic Order Framework emerges as a pivotal milestone, showcasing CoW Swap’s adaptability and dedication to meeting the evolving needs of the crypto community.

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Navigating the Evolution of CoW Swap: From Market Orders to Programmatic Orders


## TL;DR

-   During the month of  **May**, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of  **$2.4B**  and generated a surplus of  **$16.5M**
-   In exciting news, the CoW Swap widget got integrated by Safe {Wallet], MEV Scanner was launched, and CoW DAO Revenue & CoW AMM Performance dashboards went live
-   In terms of Governance, CoW DAO executed CIPS 43 & 44

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of  **$2.4B.**

![1-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_may_2024_highlights_a5aa5bc848.webp)

The top batches worth highlighting are the following:

-   **Batch with the highest % of CoW trades**  **(**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x80335524b00f7fb0ca810781b8097acd9f3a26c160a3829e6d2fbe49caa08fc0?tab=orders)**)**. The total batch volume was  **$2,165,670**, and it was created by two traders who were perfectly CoWed for  **90% ($1.9M)**  of their volume. One trader was buying  **WETH-WFTM**, and the other trader was selling  **WETH-WFTM**.

![2-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_may_2024_highlights_3a87975f5a.webp)

-   **Batch containing the highest volume**  **(**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x93f390d0a9ba487cadca006270ec5b092df9a1104438fdb7f630a0cbf64271c8?tab=orders&vis=transfers)**)**: The total batch volume was  **$15,968,035.14** and it was created by three traders who were swapping  **DAI** to **USDC, ETH** to **BTRFLY,** and **WETH** to **TOKE**.

![3-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_may_2024_highlights_c5df911595.webp)

-   **Batch with the highest amount of surplus**  **(**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xc8c849f6e8f1638b366782946b2004b6c2225f74fe9821004e9107d7b3788531?tab=orders)**)**: The total batch volume was  **$8,534,108.21** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **ETH to**  **USDC**. This trader achieved the largest surplus for the month of May by getting  **$173,922.78 USDC**  extra, which was roughly 2**%**  surplus.

![4-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_may_2024_highlights_152ab79f09.webp)

During the month of  **April**, the top 10 traders traded a total of  **$22M.**

![5-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_may_2024_highlights_8e3c3abf09.webp)

In the table below you can see the total volume for this month’s biggest trades. The most active trader executed a whopping  **$5.6M**  in trades with CoW Protocol this month.

![6-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_may_2024_highlights_c078f604e4.webp)

## Solvers

In  **May**, solvers generated a total of $16M in surplus, which is money in the pockets of traders.

![7-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_may_2024_highlights_c0bac7f1ea.webp)

Below you can find a breakdown of how each solver performed in May.

![8-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_may_2024_highlights_5277340481.webp)

## Governance

It has been a hectic month in terms of governance! The CoW cannot be stopped 💪

![9-may-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/9_may_2024_highlights_25544c8f9c.webp)

## Executed Proposals

The DAO executed three important proposals this month:

-   [CIP-43: Operational CoW DAO Safe Renewal](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0xcf0cea1d434e3036d07cb61d3d155b2bd45af0d83d280897eb11ce69f5e1f34b)
-   [CIP-44: Reduced bonding requirements](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x1b6f1171633ec3d20c4370db37074aa1bd830486d4d0d6c26165915cc42d9412)

## Draft Proposals

This month, there was one new proposals asking for feedback before moving into the next phase, final CIPs, in their current form:

-   [CIP-Draft: Balancer and CoW jointly creating CoWAMM pools](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-draft-balancer-and-cow-jointly-creating-cowamm-pools/2429)

Make sure to read them and leave comments — your feedback is highly appreciated and will help move these important topics forward. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to the CoW DAO, make sure to use the following  [template](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-0-template/28).

## CoWmunity News

-   [Safe{Wallet} launched Native Swaps powered by CoW Swap widget](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1790352311124213912)
-   In collaboration with CoW Grants,  [MEV Scanner was launched](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1796184453007458496)  — a new tool to find how much MEV various wallets have suffered. Available on X, Discord, and Telegram!
-   Released the new  [CoW DAO Revenue Dashboard](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1792657133861056513)  so that anyone can check in real time how much money CoW DAO is making.
-   [Published a CoW AMM digest](https://forum.cow.fi/t/4-months-of-cow-amm-what-we-have-learned-and-the-next-steps/2432)  explaining all things happening around CoW AMM for the 4 months that it has been live
-   [Released a CoW AMM Dune Dashboard](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1788616025635967222)  that includes stats like aggregate pool APYs and CoW AMM performance compared to a reference pool.
-   [CoW AMM got extensively covered on the latest Blockworks Research deep dive on LVR.](https://x.com/blockworksres/status/1791184122951704758)
-   Hear our  [story how we got started in crypto](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1791891046668136919)
-   Had our say in the DOJ episode with our  [“MEV is theft” tweet](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1790889428887470243)
-   [FairyCoW Swap launched](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1787514538692096264)  its programmable encryption on top of CoW Protocol orders
-   Published an example of what  [optimal settlements in DeFi look like](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1787893735453564992)
-   Participated in  [FuruRadio Episode 8](https://x.com/furucombo/status/1790773019872465355)  twitter spaces cover all things Solver related
-   Published several blog articles:  [How to Avoid MEV Bots](https://blog.cow.fi/how-to-avoid-mev-bots-38c63584921e),  [What is a Smart Contract?](https://blog.cow.fi/what-is-a-smart-contract-13a7f33ed7c7), and  [What is Slippage in Crypto?](https://blog.cow.fi/what-is-slippage-in-crypto-59937f801663)

## Product Updates

**Backend**

The backend team has been working hard to improve the product infrastructure. In  **May**, we:

-   Allowed solvers to simulate orders without needing to hit another backend endpoint
-   Worked on solver competition by verifying solver quotes
-   Worked on collocated driver solver quoting
-   Worked on backend refactoring to enable running a circuit breaker in the autopilot (a requirement for actual colocation where solvers run their own drivers)
-   Merged CoW AMM fixes, unblocking further progress on the CoW AMM feature
-   Worked on Arbitrum deployment, including various fixes, gas price estimator, and a core component that subscribes to new blocks from the blockchain
-   Made further progress on full colocation, creating an execution plan and starting implementation
-   The backend team attended DappCon

**Frontend**

The frontend team has been working hard on improvements in the UI front, as well as the overall UI infrastructure. In  **May**, we:

-   Fixed automatic IPFS publishing with a new ENS deployment (good for the decentralization of CoW Swap and the protocol): [https://cowswap.eth.limo](https://cowswap.eth.limo/)
-   The frontend team had a retreat in Turkey, where they worked on several new and upcoming features
-   Launched CoW Swap and the CoW Explorer on Arbitrum
-   Launched EIP 6963 (injected wallets), reducing the number of default wallets and finally supporting Rabby and all wallets that support the standard
-   Worked on several features that will soon be revealed

## Open Job Positions

### Marketing

[Content Marketing Manager Remote or Lisbon](https://boards.eu.greenhouse.io/cowswap/jobs/4343031101)

### Other

[Name Your Role Remote — Lisbon](https://boards.eu.greenhouse.io/cowswap/jobs/4341959101)

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Welcome back to another CoW Update, where we break down the most notable developments of the last few weeks at CoW DAO.


CoW DAO May 2024 Highlights

## TL;DR

-   During the month of September, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of $**772M**, and generated a surplus of  **$4.8M**
-   In exciting news, CoW Protocol ran the  [TWAP-tember trading contest](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1697638081082556725?s=20), integrated oSnap for  [better decentralized governance](https://medium.com/@cow-protocol/cow-dao-integrates-osnap-for-decentralized-governance-42b8f6c42660), hosted a booth at  [DappCon](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1701193378208137377?s=20), and much more

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of **$772M.**

![1-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_september_2023_highlights_a3af17e6e8.webp)

This month, the top 3 batches worth highlighting are the following:

-   **Batch with the highest % of CoW trades**  [(Transaction details)](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x7e1ec020695aa5797d9372f0513970d369fbece8b4ec9b7fea21c06dc7ca8612?tab=orders). The total batch volume was  **$1,571,462.41**, and it was created by two traders who were perfectly CoWed for  **61% ($966,799.56)** of their volume. One trader was buying  **$cbETH**, and the other trader was selling  **WETH**.

![2-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_september_2023_highlights_9ae329c916.webp)

-   **Batch containing the highest volume**  [(Transaction details)](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x4aef2109d2c99e6822bff66f3a508858cea5ab14bc932ce306f542aef6b95c63?tab=orders&vis=transfers): The total batch volume was  **$20,834,561.93** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **USDC**  to  **DAI**.

![3-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_september_2023_highlights_223272ee64.webp)

-   **Batch with the highest amount of surplus**  [(Transaction details)](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x6ef290e2a8d35b7b050319ee182345b6933ed24de690d67ceb64bb2268c535ba?tab=orders): The total batch volume was  **$97,406.4226** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **BOND**  **to**  **DAI**. This trader achieved the largest surplus for the month of  **September**, by getting  **$76,201.52 (11% surplus)**  extra in DAI.

![4-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_september_2023_highlights_eb51f8d53a.webp)

During the month of  **September**, the top 10 traders traded a total of  **$80M.**

![5-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_september_2023_highlights_5b1431f313.webp)

In the table below you can see the total volume for this month’s biggest trades. Our most active trader executed a whopping  **$55M**  in trades with CoW Protocol this month.

![6-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_september_2023_highlights_82c11c4600.webp)

## Solvers

In  **September**, solvers generated a total of  **$4.8M**  in surplus, which is money in the pockets of traders.

![7-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_september_2023_highlights_bee4ae7db8.webp)

Below you can find a breakdown of how each solver performed in September.

![8-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_september_2023_highlights_3028469d9c.webp)

## Governance

It was a quiet month in terms of governance. The CoWs were just chilling.

![9-september-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/9_september_2023_highlights_8b9340ebd6.webp)

### Draft Proposals

This month, there was one new proposal asking for feedback before moving into the next phase, a final CIP, in its current form:

-   [CIP-Draft: Change CoW DAO’s (cow.eth) Snapshot space settings](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-draft-change-cow-daos-cow-eth-snapshot-space-settings/1897/1)

### Technical Discussions

As an “agora” for technical topics on batch auctions or CoW Protocol-related topics, the forum surfaced some very interesting posts:

-   [Guidelines for solver-computed fees for long-standing limit orders as implied by past CIPs](https://forum.cow.fi/t/guidelines-for-solver-computed-fees-for-long-standing-limit-orders-as-implied-by-past-cips/1921/1)
-   [Implementing Liquidations using CoW Protocol](https://forum.cow.fi/t/implementing-liquidations-using-cow-protocol/1922/1)

Make sure to read them and leave comments — your feedback is highly appreciated and will help move these important topics forward. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to the CoW DAO, make sure to use the following  [template](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-0-template/28).

## CoWmunity News

-   September was  [TWAP-tember for the CoW Swap herd](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1697638081082556725?s=20)! The grand prize was free trading on CoW Swap for the entire month of October, and we’ve announced the winners  [here](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1709221631338725599?s=20)
-   CoW DAO integrated oSnap for more decentralized protocol governance. Read how oSnap directly executes Snapshot proposals on-chain  [here](https://medium.com/@cow-protocol/cow-dao-integrates-osnap-for-decentralized-governance-42b8f6c42660)
-   The CoW team traveled to Berlin to  [attend DappCon](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1701193378208137377?s=20)! The team hosted a booth and delivered talks on Composable CoW, MEV, and how to deploy a solver
-   Dune published a  [case study](https://dune.com/case-studies/cow-protocols-journey-into-automated-payments-and-understanding-user-behavior)  on how CoW Swap uses the analytics tool to monitor exchange volume and the DeFi ecosystem as a whole
-   Uniswap  [integrated MEV Blocker](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1705272393651061037?s=20)  into Uniswap Wallet
-   We hosted a Twitter space titled “[How to execute large treasury swaps via Coinshift’s native CoW Swap app](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1706702796345467316?s=20)”
-   The DODO research team  [published an article](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1707719113554997668?s=20)  on the benefits of CoW Swap compared to other DEX aggregators
-   The CoW team published several articles on our blog,  [CoW Protocol Glossary](https://medium.com/@cow-protocol/cow-protocol-glossary-ad7313a2c71),  [CoW DAO integrates oSnap for decentralized governance](https://blog.cow.fi/cow-dao-integrates-osnap-for-decentralized-governance-42b8f6c42660)  and  [Why TWAP?](https://blog.cow.fi/why-twap-25d9a0f690f4)

## Product Updates

**Backend**

The backend team has been working hard to improve the product infrastructure. In  **September**, we:

-   Implemented a change so that external solvers now provide revert risk of their solutions instead of a complex composite score
-   Made price estimation logic more streamlined
-   Spent time deploying solver driver colocation on Gnosis chain staging
-   Added some open-source contributions to the Enso simulator for features we could use
-   Added support for score computation logic for the colocated driver

**Frontend**

The frontend team has been pushing hard for several improvements in the UI front as well as the overall UI infrastructure. In  **September**, we:

-   Added a “new” badge for TWAP to the swap widget on our website
-   Added more unit tests for SDK
-   Set up CMS for cow.fi based on Strapi
-   Made significant UI progress on the CoW Swap widget
-   WatchTower: Arrived at zero errors, polished the indexers, fixed some errors, improved logs, handled race condition

## Open Job Positions

CoW Protocol team is currently looking to hire:

### Engineering

[Backend Engineer with Rust Remote or Lisbon](https://boards.eu.greenhouse.io/cowswap/jobs/4208538101)

### Operations

[Operations Manager Remote or Lisbon](https://boards.eu.greenhouse.io/cowswap/jobs/4219633101)

For more information on our latest job openings, visit:  [https://cow.fi/jobs](https://cow.fi/jobs)

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

Welcome back to another CoW Update, where we break down the most notable developments of the last few weeks at CoW Protocol.

CoW Protocol September 2023 Highlights

The CoW Swap team is excited to release a simpler trading experience for its users. Gasless approvals allow traders to swap over 150 tokens completely gaslessly through CoW Swap.

Before the launch of gasless approvals, CoW Swap users benefitted from gasless trading thanks to CoW Swap’s  [intent-based](/learn/cow-protocol-glossary#:~:text=Intent%20to%20Trade)  execution model. However, they still needed to pay gas fees (in ETH) to execute approval transactions the first time they wanted to trade any token.

With gasless approvals, CoW Swap now allows users to sign a message (gas free!) that gives  [solvers](https://docs.cow.fi/solvers/solvers)  permission to execute the approval transaction on their behalf. Solvers then bundle the approval transaction with the first swap, and users pay fees in the sell token.

The result? Users can now do an entire swap, even for a new token, without spending a gwei in ETH, or even holding any ETH in their wallet at all. That’s a smoooooother (and cheaper) user experience. Moo-gnificent!

## Benefits of gasless approvals

This new upgrade comes with a host of benefits relevant to EOA and multisig wallets alike.

-   **Fully ETH-less swaps:** New users and fresh wallets can complete swaps end-to-end without needing ETH — that’s especially nice for airdrop farmers and privacy seekers
-   **Faster trades**: CoW Swap users don’t have to wait for an approval transaction to execute before the swap — traders can now swap right away, even with tokens they haven’t traded before
-   **Bundling efficiency**: Approval transactions execute alongside orders, in the same block — shielded from fluctuating gas prices, for a more cost-efficient experience overall
-   **Enhanced security**: Only an approved spender can execute transactions on behalf of a trader — users can trust that CoW Swap is as secure as ever

## Gasless approvals under the hood

Gasless approvals rely on  [ERC-2612: Permit Extension for EIP-20 Signed Approvals](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-2612).

Essentially, a function creates a signature that can call approvals directly on behalf of the owner. This allows a third party, such as a solver, to spend funds on behalf of the user. For security, gasless approvals rely on nonces which indicate the number of times a permit signature has been used. (There is also a time window in which the signature must be used.) This protects users from replay attacks because it is impossible to replicate an approval with the same nonce.

Each Ethereum transaction has a minimum fixed transaction cost associated with it. When executing transactions individually, this cost is usually higher per action than if users bundle multiple transactions together. So, in addition to creating a better user experience for traders, gasless approvals also lower the overall cost of trading on CoW Swap.

## Now live on CoW Swap

Gasless approvals are now live on  [CoW Swap](https://swap.cow.fi/#/1)  for Ethereum Mainnet. See which tokens are currently supported by checking out the  [CoW Swap Permittable Tokens List](https://hackmd.io/@mastercow/cowswap-gasless-approvals).

As always, on CoW Swap:

-   Orders are free to place and cancel
-   Traders never pay for failed transactions
-   Fees that cover settlement costs are paid in traders’ sell tokens
-   Traders are fully protected from MEV

Happy trading!

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

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Announcing Gasless Approvals on CoW Swap


CoW DAO, which builds user-protective products like CoW Swap and MEV Blocker, is launching the first MEV-capturing AMM — CoW AMM.

While CoW DAO’s other products protect traders from MEV, CoW AMM is the first product from CoW DAO built to protect liquidity providers. CoW AMM is the first product on any blockchain to tackle the LVR problem head on.

## The LVR Problem

First described by Jason Milionis, Ciamac C. Moallemi, Tim Roughgarden, and Anthony Lee Zhang in the paper  [Automated Market Making and Loss-Versus-Rebalancing](https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.06046), LVR is defined as the losses LPs incur due to arbitrage bots constantly rebalancing liquidity pools.

Research suggests that:

-   Liquidity providers for major token pairs lose 5–7% of their liquidity due to LVR¹
-   In aggregate, arbitrageurs are responsible for well over $500M in LP losses every year²
-   LVR accounts for more MEV than frontrunning and sandwich attacks combined

LVR disincentivizes liquidity provision in DeFi, restricting its potential utility and growth. And LVR is a contributing factor to block-builder centralization, which many people consider undesirable for Ethereum as a whole.

## How CoW AMM Works

The CoW AMM is a special kind of automated market maker designed to help liquidity providers capture MEV from arbitrageurs. According to research by Andrea Canidio and Robin Fritsch in the paper “[Arbitrageurs’ profits, LVR, and sandwich attacks: batch trading as an AMM design response](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.02074v3.pdf),” the most promising way to capture LVR is by using batch auctions to rebalance liquidity pools based on surplus.

![1-cow-dao-launches-cow-amm.gif](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_cow_dao_launches_cow_amm_303d6058bb.gif)

CoW AMM, therefore, works as follows:

1.  Liquidity providers deposit tokens into protected CoW AMM liquidity pools
2.  This liquidity becomes available to CoW Swap traders, who can access it similarly to other sources of liquidity
3.  Solvers bid to rebalance CoW AMM pools whenever there is an arbitrage opportunity
4.  The solver that offers the most surplus to the pool wins the right to rebalance the pool

This design eliminates LVR by capturing arbitrage value for LPs and shielding it from MEV bots.

Said another way: while most AMMs allow arbitrageurs to make money at the expense of their LPs, CoW AMM protects this money for the LPs instead.

## Expected Outcomes

Research suggests that CoW AMM LPs will fare as well if not better than CFAMM LPs.  [Backtesting over 6 months in 2023](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.02074v3.pdf)  shows that LP returns on CoW AMM would have been equal to or greater than returns on Uniswap in 10 of the 11 most liquid, non-stablecoin pairs.

## Why is CoW DAO launching CoW AMM?

Launching CoW AMM is a natural extension of CoW DAO’s mission to protect Ethereum users from MEV. With two successful products (MEV Blocker and CoW Protocol) aimed at traders, the time is right to extend MEV protection to liquidity providers.

LVR is a large problem, estimated to be responsible for over $500M in value lost to MEV bots every year — more than all trading-related forms of MEV combined.

CoW DAO is uniquely capable of bringing an FM-AMM design to market, as it relies on a surplus-capturing solver network to balance liquidity pools. CoW Protocol currently runs the largest solver competition on Ethereum, with 19 active solvers.

**Find out more about CoW AMM here:** [**cow.fi/cow-amm**](http://cow.fi/cow-amm)

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The novel AMM design protects liquidity providers from MEV bots by eliminating LVR (loss-versus-rebalancing), which costs LPs more than $500M every year


CoW DAO launches the first MEV-capturing AMM

TWAP orders allow traders to spread their trade over a specified period of time in order to smooth out fluctuations in market price and open a position for an average market price. A TWAP order consists of multiple smaller orders placed at regular intervals over a predefined time period.

> **In our tests, selling 1,000 ETH in four parts of 250 ETH each, allowed us to yield a price for the order that was 3.5% better than selling the 1,000 ETH all at once!**

## TWAP Order Interface

To get started with TWAP orders through the  [Safe](https://app.safe.global/)  app, you will first need to authorise a transaction signing request that contains a batch of transactions (we’re big fans of gas savings through batching ⛽🚫). This batch includes a “setFallbackHandler’’ function. TWAP orders are the first order type that runs on a new conditional order framework, super-charging your Safe.

In order for this framework to make complex trades on your behalf, an upgrade to Safe’s “fallback  handler” is required. Don’t worry though, you will be automatically prompted to upgrade in order to use TWAP.

![1-twap.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_twap_9fef6b1d70.webp)


The TWAP interface has several sections:

-   **Trading Assets**: Select the assets you want to swap and the amounts of each.
-   **Price Protection**: Provides protection against major price movements. Your TWAP order won’t execute if the market price dips more than this percentage (calculated from the asset price at the time of order submission).
-   **Number of parts**: Enter the number of parts you would like your order split into.
-   **Total Duration**: The total amount of time your order will take to execute.
-   **Part Duration**: Automatically calculated from your total duration and number of parts, part duration shows how long CoW Swap will wait between each part of your order.
-   **Sell & Buy per part**: Shows an estimate of how much CoW Swap will sell and buy with each part of your trade.

## Benefits of TWAP Orders

TWAP orders have been widely explored through research literature in traditional finance but haven’t yet seen the light of day in DeFi. They’re finally entering use on exchanges such as CoW Swap and they provide a range of benefits for traders.

**Reduce your slippage**: Breaking up a large order into smaller pieces allows you to set a smaller slippage tolerance for each piece than if you had executed the large order as one.

**Reduce your price impact**: As with slippage, breaking up a large order into small pieces allows you to spread your liquidity needs over time, reducing your price impact.

**Always receive 100% of your order surplus**: On CoW Swap, all order surplus is forwarded to you. If your order executes for a better price than your quoted price — thanks to  [Coincidence of Wants](https://blog.cow.fi/what-are-cows-on-cow-swap-e72baaa4678a)  or any other price improvement that solvers are able to find — the extra price improvement will be forwarded to you.

**Eliminate market fluctuations**: By giving traders the time-weighted average price, TWAP orders smooth out market volatility, which makes trying to predict prices a thing of the past.

**Customise your order parameters**: TWAP orders allow you to fine-tune your order by specifying the number of parts you’d like it split up into, as well as the time period you want it to execute over. On CoW Swap, TWAP orders also have a “price protection” option which protects your order from executing at an unfavorable price due to market volatility.

## Get Started with TWAP Orders on CoW Swap

TWAP orders are now available in the  [CoW Swap order interface](https://swap.cow.fi/#/1/advanced)  under the “Advanced” tab.

**Have a Safe?**  Awesome! You can try out TWAP  [here](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=TWAP-announcement).

**Don’t have a Safe?**  Not a problem! Create one  [here](https://app.safe.global/share/safe-app?appUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fswap.cow.fi&chain=eth).

The CoW Swap team is working on adding support for more wallets in the future.

One more thing to note: TWAP orders are most useful for big trades! So, when trading on Mainnet, the  _minimum_  TWAP order size is $5k. This minimum ensures that your savings from reduced price impact are not lost on execution fees (AKA gas fees). If you want to trade smaller amounts, head over to Gnosis Chain, where the TWAP order minimum is only $5 (and the gas fees are much cheaper!)

As always, on CoW Swap:

-   All prices are aggregated from the best available on-chain and off-chain liquidity.
-   Traders are fully protected from MEV.
-   Orders are free to place and free to cancel.
-   Traders never pay for failed transactions.
-   Transactions are gasless as fees are paid in the sell token.

Celebrating ComposableCoW’s conditional order superpowers, we are releasing it with TWAP (time-weighted average price) order support for enabled-Safe users.

Give  [TWAP orders a try](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=TWAP-announcement)  today and let us know what you think by reaching out on  [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)  or  [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/cowprotocol)!

![2-twap.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_twap_2220db98f0.webp)

We wish you much surplus and happy TWAP order trading! Give  [TWAP orders a try](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=TWAP-announcement)  today and let us know what you think by reaching out on  [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)  or  [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/cowprotocol)!

_Please note that TWAP orders currently require a_ [_Safe_](https://safe.global/) _wallet with a fallback handler. More wallets will be supported in the future._

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

large_cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-cover-photo.gif

medium_cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-cover-photo.gif

small_cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-cover-photo.gif

thumbnail_cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-cover-photo.gif

cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-cover-photo.gif

CoW Swap is excited to announce the launch of Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP) orders! Available now as an advanced order type in the CoW Swap order interface.


CoW Swap Launches TWAP Orders

MEV or “maximal extractable value” is a hidden tax on all types of Ethereum transactions. Any time you make a DeFi trade, buy or sell an NFT, or lend tokens to a liquidity pool, opportunistic users known as “searchers” may manipulate your trades, resulting in unfavorable prices, failed transactions, and missed opportunities.

To date, MEV has been responsible for more than $1.3 billion in lost value for Ethereum users.

![1-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_what_is_mev_050181095d.png)

MEV is a complex phenomenon with multiple different causes. In this article we’ll take a deeper look at what causes MEV, how it affects traders, and how you can protect yourself.

## How Does MEV Work?

MEV is possible because validators are free to order blockchain transactions as they see fit in order to maximize their profits. Proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains such as Ethereum use parties known as “validators” in order to ensure that the consensus rules of the blockchain are followed by all participants. Validators get randomly selected to add the next block to the blockchain. In this process, they determine what transactions are included in the block, and in what order.

![2-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_what_is_mev_04f9643567.png)

When you submit a transaction on Ethereum, it does not immediately get added to the next block. Instead, it first goes into the “mempool” which is the collection of all pending transactions. Validators then pull transactions from the mempool and add them to the next block when it’s time for it to be built.

Here is where the opportunity to extract value through MEV comes in.

Validators are not required to add transactions to the block in the same order that they were submitted by users, so searchers can pay validators a fee to order transactions in a specific way. For example, they can pay to have their transactions come first if they want to frontrun someone else, or they can pay to have their transactions come right after a specific transaction if they want to perform a backrun — both are types of MEV.

## Understanding MEV Terms

In order to get a solid grasp of how the different types of MEV work, we must first familiarize ourselves with the function of on-chain trading through decentralized exchanges (DEXs) along with some terms.

**Automated Market Makers (AMM)**: Automated Market Makers are trading mechanisms that allow traders to buy and sell assets in real time. Unlike traditional “orderbook” trading, which relies on counterparties for every transaction (you need a seller in order to buy and a buyer in order to sell), AMMs work by maintaining a constant ratio between the prices of two assets. For example, ETH and COW. AMMs use the formula “x*y = k” to determine a fair price based on the ratio between two assets (x and y) in the liquidity pool.

Any time a trade alters this ratio by depleting the supply of one asset and increasing the other, the prices of the assets adjust in order to preserve the established ratio. For instance, if a trader buys COW and sells ETH, the COW price rises, and the ETH price falls. The opposite happens when traders sell COW and buy ETH.

**Slippage Tolerance**: When placing a trade, traders set a “slippage tolerance” for their transactions, which represents the maximum price difference they’re willing to accept for their trade. For example, if ETH is trading at $2,000 and you place an order to buy ETH with a 5% slippage tolerance, you’re willing to buy ETH at up to $2,100. If ETH goes above $2,100, however, your trade will fail, as it’s outside your slippage tolerance.

Some slippage tolerance is always necessary because the prices of crypto assets are constantly fluctuating, so by the time your trade executes, the price may have moved. Setting your slippage tolerance too high, however, leaves room for searchers to exploit your trades.

**Price Impact**: Crypto markets, like all markets, are based on supply and demand. AMMs maintain “liquidity pools” of assets that they use to fill trades. Each trade drains some amount of this liquidity, moving the price of the asset. This price movement is known as “price impact.” The larger the trade, the bigger the price impact.

A trade of $100 ETH will not move the price of ETH very noticeably, since it makes up a tiny fraction of the available liquidity. A trade of $1,000,000 ETH however, will noticeably move the price of ETH.

**Transaction Reordering**: Blockchain transactions do not always enter the block in the order that they were submitted. Searchers can “bribe” the validators responsible for creating the block to get them to arrange transactions in a specific sequence. This transaction reordering is what makes all of MEV possible.

## The Different Types of MEV

Now that we’re familiar with the core concepts at play in MEV attacks, let’s take a look at the different types of MEV.

### Frontrunning

Frontrunning is a particular type of MEV that affects all forms of Ethereum transactions including trades, NFT mints, and more. Users can sometimes receive messages like “your transaction may be frontrun” on decentralized exchanges and it’s important to understand what this means.

![3-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_what_is_mev_fa9d5e5144.png)

Frontrunning occurs when a user makes a transaction but gets “front run” by an MEV bot who makes the same transactions ahead of them.

1.  **Monitoring Pending Transactions**: The first step involves monitoring the blockchain network’s mempool, a holding area for pending transactions. Here, frontrunners, who are often sophisticated bots, scan the mempool to identify transactions that can carry significant value that they want to snatch away or that could influence the price of a particular asset.
2.  **Selecting Profitable Transactions**: The frontrunner will analyze the potential market impact once such a transaction is identified. For instance, if a large buy order for a specific token is detected, the frontrunner knows that this transaction could increase the asset’s price once processed.
3.  **Placing a New Transaction**: The frontrunner will initiate their buy order for the same asset, intending to get their transaction processed before the initially detected transaction. They typically give the validators a higher “tip” to execute their transaction first in the block in comparison to the target transaction.

Frontrunning disrupts the fair operation of blockchain transactions, leading to distorted prices, value drain, and missed opportunities for everyday traders.

Read more about frontrunning in our article: “[What is Frontrunning](/learn/what-is-frontrunning)”

### Backrunning

Backrunning is another form of MEV that affects various Ethereum transactions, including trades, NFT mints, and more. Unlike frontrunning, backrunning takes advantage of transactions after they have been executed.

![4-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_what_is_mev_ebc0972169.png)

Backrunning occurs when a user makes a transaction that gets followed by an MEV bot executing a strategic transaction right after theirs in order to capture a price movement.

1.  **Monitoring Pending Transactions**: Like frontrunning, backrunning attacks begin with searchers monitoring the mempool for profitable opportunities. In particular, they are looking for transactions that cause a large price impact, as the backrunning attack involves capturing the arbitrage opportunity left behind after a large trade.
2.  **Finding a Transaction with a Large Price Impact**: Once a valuable transaction is identified, the searcher analyzes its impact. For instance, if a large sell order for a specific token is detected, the backrunner knows that this transaction could decrease the asset’s price once processed.
3.  **Capturing the Price Impact**: By placing a transaction directly after a previous, large transaction, the MEV bot can capture the price movement that the transaction causes on the AMM. The backrunner makes a transaction correcting this price impact and collecting the arbitrage in the process.

Backrunning is considered the least harmful type of MEV. While it still captures value, it does not do it at the expense of the trader. When done in isolation, it only captures leftover arbitrage after a large transaction moves an asset’s price.

Read more about backrunning in our article: “[What is Backrunning](/learn/what-is-backrunning-mev-attacks-explained)”

### Sandwich Attacks

Sandwich attacks are considered the most dangerous type of MEV as they extract the most value from users. A sandwich attack is a combination of frontrunning and backrunning for maximum profit on the part of the searcher.

![5-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_what_is_mev_f66a58a086.png)

Sandwich attacks occur when a user’s transaction gets trapped, or “sandwiched,” between two hostile transactions — one before and one after. As a result, the original transaction executes at a much higher price than necessary, leading to an inflated price for the original trader and a profit for the searcher placing the two extra trades.

1.  **Monitor Pending Transactions**: Like all other types of MEV, sandwich attacks begin with searchers monitoring the mempool for profitable opportunities. In this case, they’re looking for trades that will create a large price impact which they can frontrun, capturing the value of the asset before the large transaction, and then backrun after the victim transaction, capitalizing on the price impact.
2.  **Perform a Frontrunning Transaction**: When a large trade is identified, the searcher will duplicate it and place their own transaction right before the victim’s — in essence frontrunning. The searcher gauges the size of their transaction to cause just enough price impact to push the asset’s price up to the precise slippage tolerance the victim has set.
3.  **Execute the Victim Transaction**: Since a sandwich attack is a 2-part process, the searcher orders transactions so that the victim’s transaction executes right after the seracher’s frontrunning transaction, but just before their backrunning transaction.
4.  **Execute a Backrunning Transaction**: After the victim transaction executes, its price impact pushes the price of the asset even further (remember it was already raised as a result of the searcher’s frontrunning transaction). Once this takes place, the searcher executes a backrunning transaction, selling the asset and profiting from the arbitrage.

Sandwich attacks are the most common types of swap-related MEV, taking advantage of a user’s slippage tolerance to cause maximum pain for the trader and maximum profit for the searcher.

Read more about sandwich attacks in our article: “[What is a Sandwich Attack](/learn/what-is-a-sandwich-attack-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself)”

### Loss-Versus-Rebalancing (LVR)

Loss-versus-rebalancing (LVR) is a type of MEV that affects liquidity providers (LPs) and accounts for more value loss than all other types of MEV combined.

LVR is different from the swap-based versions of MEV we’ve covered so far. It occurs when liquidity providers lose out on potential profits due to stale prices. Many liquidity providers haven’t even heard of LVR, but it costs them 5–7% of their liquidity, resulting in hundreds of millions lost each year. In fact, when accounting for LVR, many of the largest liquidity pools are not profitable for LPs at all.

![6-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_what_is_mev_39dc2a4798.png)

_(_[_Source: Delphi Digital_](https://members.delphidigital.io/learn/loss-versus-rebalancing-lvr)_)_

LVR is a form of arbitrage that occurs whenever an AMM has an outdated (stale) price in comparison to some other trading venue. Arbitrageurs exploit this price difference by trading from the AMM to the more liquid exchange (usually a centralized exchange like Binance), correcting the arbitrage and extracting value from LPs in the process.

Learn more about LVR in our article: “[What is Loss-Versus-Rebalancing (LVR)?](/learn/what-is-loss-versus-rebalancing-lvr)”

### Other MEV

Since the definition of MEV is broad enough to encompass all validator activities that maximize the profits of a given block, there are many other types of MEV that we haven’t covered here as well.

One such example is “Oracle Extractable Value” (OEV) which occurs whenever data from an oracle (such as pricing information) is outdated and searchers can capitalize on this arbitrage at the expense of regular users.

## An Example of an MEV Attack

Let’s take a look at a sample MEV attack through the example of the most common type of MEV — the sandwich attack. In this example, we’re going to be trading ETH and COW.

![7-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_what_is_mev_d8784b4c5e.png)

**Step 1**: Bessie wants to buy COW using her ETH. She goes to a decentralized exchange (DEX) like Uniswap, and places an order for 4,000 COW. This should cost her around 1 ETH, but due to significant market volatility, Bessie decides to set a 10% slippage tolerance. This means she’s willing to pay up to 1.1 ETH for 4,000 COW.

**Step 2**: Bessie’s trade enters the Ethereum mempool (the pending order queue), and a lurking searcher spots an opportunity. Springing into action, the searcher places a trade just before Bessie’s trade that is large enough to push the COW price up to her slippage tolerance. In this case, the searcher buys 4,000 COW for exactly 1 ETH. As a result of this first trade’s price impact, Bessie’s 4,000 COW purchase now costs 1.1 ETH — the maximum she’s willing to pay.

**Step 3**: Once the searcher’s transaction clears, Bessie’s transaction also goes through and she receives her 4,000 COW in exchange for 1.1 ETH. The searcher takes advantage of this price impact and sells his original COW at this new rate — 4,000 COW for 1.1 ETH.

In the end, the searcher buys 4,000 COW for 1 ETH and sells it for 1.1 ETH, earning a profit of 0.1 ETH (before gas and fees) for not much effort.

It’s easy to see how lucrative sandwich attacks are!

Bessie, on the other hand, ends up with a bad deal. She could have purchased 4,000 COW for just 1 ETH, but her slippage tolerance left room for a sandwich attack that forced her to pay an extra 10% for her trade.

## Why is MEV Bad?

MEV is a complex and often controversial topic in the Ethereum community.

Some say that MEV is a natural part of the Ethereum market mechanism and it helps to find the most efficient prices. Others believe that MEV can be harmful, but only if it’s concentrated in the hands of a few validators — therefore they work to “democratize” MEV and allow anyone to extract value from on-chain transactions.

However, MEV makes money for searchers, block builders, and Ethereum validators at the expense of regular users… especially beginners who don’t know how to protect themselves. As of the time of writing, sandwich attacks on AMMs and aggregators alike generate [almost $1 million in profit for searchers each week](https://eigenphi.io/mev/ethereum/sandwich).

![8-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_what_is_mev_26ab0ff9ec.png)

Over time, persistent MEV erodes market confidence as traders realize they are at a constant disadvantage to more sophisticated actors. Ultimately, MEV may pose an existential threat to blockchain ecosystems like Ethereum so it’s imperative for solutions to emerge that protect everyday traders from price exploitation.

## How to Protect Yourself from MEV

There are multiple ways to avoid MEV as a trader. The most comprehensive solutions take place at the dApp level, but not all dApps provide MEV protection so there are more all-encompassing protection methods including RPC endpoints.

### Reduce Slippage

The most basic defense against MEV is setting a low slippage tolerance.

Since MEV relies on slippage for price manipulation, transactions with a lower slippage tolerance give searchers less room to exploit trades.

For users who aren’t utilizing any other MEV protection tools, setting a lower slippage tolerance can be a good first line of defense, however it’s by no means a complete solution. Setting the slippage tolerance too low often results in failed transactions. Even with optimal slippage, MEV bots may still be able to extract value from your trades.

### Use a Custom RPC Endpoint

![9-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/9_what_is_mev_70787de2c8.png)

A better protection method is to install an MEV protection RPC endpoint.

A Remote Procedure Call (RPC) endpoint is an intermediate layer that routes transactions from a user’s wallet to the blockchain itself. Transactions pass through RPC endpoints before getting to the mempool, so RPCs can provide additional functionality across any blockchain application or protocol.

Normally, RPCs are a boring piece of blockchain infrastructure. Recently, however, specialized RPCs have begun incorporating extra security guarantees for transactions before they reach the blockchain.

One of the most popular specialized RPC endpoints is [MEV Blocker](https://cow.fi/mev-blocker). As the name suggests, MEV Blocker provides protection against MEV across all of Ethereum. The RPC works by managing a permissionless network of searchers and hiding transactions from the public mempool. These searchers cannot frontrun or sandwich user transactions. Instead, they capture value through backrunning. Anytime a searcher backruns a user’s transaction, the searcher keeps up to 10% of the value and sends the other 90% back to the user as a rebate.

Install MEV Blocker here: [https://cow.fi/mev-blocker](https://cow.fi/mev-blocker)

### Use an MEV-Protected DEX

![10-what-is-mev.png](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/10_what_is_mev_16deedca85.png)

As MEV has become more prevalent, decentralized applications (especially decentralized exchanges) have begun offering creative protection solutions to users. For example, many DEXs offer an “auto-slippage” feature which determines the optimal slippage for user trades, reducing the chances of price exploitation.

[CoW Swap](https://swap.cow.fi/#/) is a meta DEX aggregator that finds the best prices for trades and provides comprehensive MEV protection. The protocol uses a unique trading mechanism that relies on batch auctions and intents to achieve the best outcomes for users. Thanks to a powerful combination of delegated trade execution, batch auctions, and protected transaction flow through MEV Blocker, CoW Swap users benefit from thorough MEV protection on all trades.

Try CoW Swap here: [https://swap.cow.fi/#/](https://swap.cow.fi/#/)

## Maximal Extractable Value — Ethereum’s Existential Battle

MEV is a critical problem for the Ethereum ecosystem because it undermines the fundamental principles of fairness and transparency that blockchain technology aims to uphold. The ability of sophisticated actors to extract value from everyday traders pushes users away and discourages the broad adoption of decentralized technologies.

Addressing — and eventually solving — MEV is essential to keeping Ethereum a robust, innovative, and user-friendly platform for all participants. To this end, CoW DAO is working hard to secure a decentralized future by creating products that ensure a fair and protective decentralized financial system.

Learn more about CoW DAO, its mission, and its various products here: [https://cow.fi/](https://cow.fi/).

large_what-is-mev-cover-photo.png

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MEV is a $1.3 billion problem for Ethereum, but what exactly is it?

What is MEV? — Maximal Extractable Value Explained

## TL;DR

-   During the month of  **August**, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of  **$1.05B**, and generated a surplus of  **$5.3M**
-   In exciting news, CoW Protocol  [launched TWAP orders](https://blog.cow.fi/cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-d5583135b472), added  [native support for Trezor wallets](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1696902398164316377?s=20), and was  [featured on the 0xResearch podcast](https://twitter.com/0xResearch/status/1695065029563838767?s=20)
-   In terms of Governance, CoW DAO executed CIPS  [28](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x269163793f84ceded1b4c902ca1d368e49f4c5991cb4780493feca2a0b640f1b),  [29](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x22fde20fee09167dbde2981a8e9b7552dcb67af887474b0005d15eedb2a8a6d9), and  [30](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0xbb52a603325a81e2f4e2cb0bb17d6626d8929737f2511d18e184cdeb94f7f3de)

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of  **$1.05B.**

![1-august-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_august_2023_highlights_164dca9836.webp)

This month, the top 3 batches worth highlighting are the following:

-   **Batch with the highest % of CoW trades (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x549099b6116bbe176ae524b33ac56c92b768b92ab76fd88de351c94d25870f64?tab=graph)**)**. The total batch volume was  **$41,401,** and it was created by two traders who were CoWed for  **40%**  **($16,401)**  of the batch volume. One trader was buying  **stETH**  with  **DAI**, and the other trader was selling  **DAI**  for  **stETH.**


![2-august-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_august_2023_highlights_f74091792f.webp)

-   **Batch containing the highest volume (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x094f33db1244c18dd34a026e36bcf42653eaf51ce4731ea4b3cee663daa081dc?tab=graph&vis=transfers)**):**  The total batch volume was  **$9,988,935.71** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **USDT to**  **USDC**.


![3-august-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_august_2023_highlights_c84ee58c09.webp)

-   **Batch with the highest amount of surplus (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x55c195cbc41c7547d7e30e02a89d626abeddcaa0d6e6d4e5f48934c5414e0da0?tab=orders&vis=transfers)**)**: The total batch volume was  **3,545.97 ETH** and it was created by two traders who were swapping  **ETH**  to  **stETH** and  **ETH**  to  **DAI**. Combined, these two traders achieved the largest surplus for the month of  **August**, by getting  **$127,719.33K**  (**2.01%**  surplus) extra.


![4-august-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_august_2023_highlights_b536caa80f.webp)

During the month of  **August**, the top 10 traders traded a total of  **$109M.**


![5-august-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_august_2023_highlights_08c9d1d339.webp)

In the table below you can see the trade volume that CoW Swap traders have executed as well as the total volume for all trades. Our most active trader executed a whopping  **$100M** in trades with CoW Protocol this month.


![6-august-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_august_2023_highlights_46765e7ebb.webp)

## Solvers

In  **August**, solvers generated a total of  **$5.2M**, which is money in the pockets of traders.


![7-august-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_august_2023_highlights_7de2003217.webp)

Below you can find a breakdown of how each solver performed in August.


![8-august-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_august_2023_highlights_62263bcf59.webp)

## Governance

It has been a hectic month in terms of governance; CoW DAO has executed 3 proposals! After a relaxing month of July, the CoWs came back in force for August 💪.

### Executed Proposals

This month we executed three important proposals:

-   [CIP 28 — Should CoW DAO send its profits to the CoW Treasury Core unit to generate extra revenues?](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x269163793f84ceded1b4c902ca1d368e49f4c5991cb4780493feca2a0b640f1b)
-   [CIP-29: Renewal of the solver rewards program](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x22fde20fee09167dbde2981a8e9b7552dcb67af887474b0005d15eedb2a8a6d9)
-   [CIP-30: Implementing oSnap for Optimistic Governance in CoW DAO](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0xbb52a603325a81e2f4e2cb0bb17d6626d8929737f2511d18e184cdeb94f7f3de)

### Draft Proposals

There has been a new proposal asking for feedback before moving into the next phase, a final CIP, in its current form:

-   [Fees and CoW bonding for MEVBlocker](https://forum.cow.fi/t/fees-and-cow-bonding-for-mevblocker/1876)

### Technical Discussions

As an “agora” for technical topics on batch auctions or CoW Protocol-related topics, the forum surfaced an interesting post:

1.  [Measuring and banning overbidding](https://forum.cow.fi/t/measuring-and-banning-overbidding/1874)

Make sure to read through it and leave comments — your feedback is highly appreciated and will help move important topics forward. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to the CoW DAO, make sure to use the following  [template](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-0-template/28).

## CoWmunity News

-   In August we  [launched the much anticipated TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price) special order type](https://blog.cow.fi/cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-d5583135b472)  on Ethereum Mainnet and Gnosis Chain
-   Added  [native support for Trezor](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1696902398164316377?s=20)  — Trezor users can now interact with CoW Swap natively without having to connect via a third party wallet
-   CoW Swap’s co-founder and CTO, Felix, was a guest on the  [0xResearch podcast](https://twitter.com/0xResearch/status/1695065029563838767?s=20)  where he discussed strategies for eliminating MEV
-   Participated in a  [Twitter space on “Intent-ifying the future”](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1689268085574758400?s=20)  with Across Protocol
-   MEV Blocker was featured in the  [Our Network newsletter](https://ournetwork.substack.com/p/ournetwork-issue-178)  as a solution to the problem of MEV
-   CoW DAO’s treasury manager, Karpatkey, built out a  [slick dashboard](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1689649381925163008?s=20)  showcasing the treasury operations of CoW DAO
-   Keystone wallet partnered with CoW Swap to give customers  [15% off its new CoW-branded Keystone 3 Pro](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1691554495296160073?s=20)
-   [Coinshift integrated CoW Swap](https://twitter.com/0xCoinshift/status/1694029063042871365?s=20)  to bring CoW’s multi-sig swap functionality to Coinshift apps
-   A grant proposal for a Software Engineer Core Contributor was  [posted to the forum](https://forum.cow.fi/t/core-contributor-software-engineer-aug-2023-jan-2024-inclusive/1870)  and  [passed in voting on Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cowgrants.eth/proposal/0x0202a88c6792d1bd1e534cf1da94769130f495e72247e666b4afff8b22da9db0)
-   A grant proposal for a Copywriter Core Contributor was  [posted to the forum](https://forum.cow.fi/t/core-contributor-copywriter-september-2023-february-2024/1873/2)  and  [passed in voting on Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cowgrants.eth/proposal/0xd1efd4784310bbbdb8ea1d566202d11e8dda26eb73711307076433a25a475f97)
-   Published several articles on our blog:  [What is price improvement and why is it unique to CoW Swap?](https://blog.cow.fi/what-is-price-improvement-and-why-is-it-unique-to-cow-swap-e21d86e756be),  [Aave Trade Breakdown](https://blog.cow.fi/aave-trade-breakdown-e17a7563d7ba),  [ENS Trade Breakdown](https://blog.cow.fi/ens-trade-breakdown-a8eb00ddd8c0),  [Nexus Mutual Trade Breakdown](https://blog.cow.fi/nexus-mutual-trade-breakdown-4aacc6a94be8),  [CoW Swap Launches TWAP Orders](https://blog.cow.fi/cow-swap-launches-twap-orders-d5583135b472),  [How to use CoW Swap’s TWAP orders via Safe Wallet](https://blog.cow.fi/how-to-use-cow-swaps-twap-orders-via-safe-wallet-1a0854484dfb), and  [All you need to know about CoW Swap’s new Safe fallback handler](https://blog.cow.fi/all-you-need-to-know-about-cow-swaps-new-safe-fallback-handler-8ef0439925d1)

## Product Updates

**Backend**

The backend team has been working hard to improve the product infrastructure. In  **August**, we:

-   Worked on storing more required data in colocated mode
-   Implemented a new strategy for fetching the current block to reduce system lag by 1 block
-   Made a strong push towards verified quotes and CIP-27
-   Implemented a change so that solvers are no longer allowed to give strange values from the score (specifically overbidding), the driver will now always calculate the score
-   Improved driver colocation by deploying Goerli as expected and refactoring how we setup legacy estimators in the infrastructure
-   Launched TWAP
-   Implemented a metrics fix for determining which solver provides the “winning” quote
-   Removed a bunch of code related to surplus fee computation

**Frontend**

The frontend team has been pushing hard for several improvements in the UI front as well as the overall UI infrastructure. In  **August**, we:

-   Released CowSwap 1.44.0
-   Worked on integration of hardware wallets (Trezor, Ledger)
-   Added support for permitable tokens (EIP-2612)
-   Made lots of progress on TWAP and released the feature
-   Added support for WalletConnect v2
-   Did lots of work on the WatchTower — an important piece of infrastructure for TWAP and Composable orders
-   Exposed the interface to composable orders via cow-sdk

## Open Job Positions

The CoW Protocol team is currently looking to hire:

### Engineering

[Backend Engineer with RustRemote or Lisbon](https://boards.eu.greenhouse.io/cowswap/jobs/4208538101)

For more information on our latest job openings, visit:  [https://cow.fi/careers](https://cow.fi/careers)

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)


CoW Protocol August 2023 Highlights

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This article summarizes the “Order Flow Auctions on the MEV Supply Chain” talk presented by CoW Swap at the Prague DeFi Summit

Understanding Order Flow Auctions

**Intent to Trade:** When users submit orders on CoW Swap, they are not actually initiating a blockchain transaction, like they would on Uniswap. Instead, orders are submitted as signed “intent to trade” messages which include the details of the intended trade, but are not actually submitted to the blockchain. From here, independent parties known as “[solvers](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/tutorials/solvers)” find the best execution path for the specified trade and execute the trade on-chain on behalf of the user. If a trade route cannot be found for any reason, the transaction will not execute and the user will not be charged a fee for the failed transaction.

**Delegated trade execution**: When it’s time to actually execute a settlement (which can contain multiple trades),  [solvers](https://docs.cow.fi/solvers/solvers)  lock in the execution path and submit the transaction to the blockchain. Note here that it is the solvers who are completing the transaction on behalf of the user, meaning that they determine the correct slippage tolerance to use, the right amount of gas fees, as well as taking on the risk of negative price movements or MEV.

The delegated trading model also means that traders using CoW Swap do not have to spend ETH to cover gas. Instead, gas fees come out of the sell token when making trades.

**AMM**: Automated Market Makers, also known as “DEXs,” are trading mechanisms that allow traders to buy and sell assets in real-time. Unlike traditional “orderbook” trading, which relies on counterparties for every transaction (you need a seller in order to buy and a buyer in order to sell), AMMs work by maintaining a constant ratio between the prices of two assets. For example, ETH and COW. AMMs use the formula “x*y = k” to determine a fair price based on the ratio between two assets (x and y) in the liquidity pool.

Any time a trade alters this ratio by depleting the supply of one asset and increasing the other, the prices of the assets adjust in order to preserve the established ratio. For instance, if a trader buys COW and sells ETH, the COW price rises and the ETH price falls. The opposite happens when traders sell COW and buy ETH.

**Slippage Tolerance**: When placing a trade, traders set a “slippage tolerance” for their transactions which represents the maximum price difference they’re willing to accept for their trade. For example, if ETH is trading at $2,000 and you place an order to buy ETH with a 5% slippage tolerance, you’re willing to buy ETH at up to $2,100. If ETH goes above $2,100, however, your trade will fail as it’s outside your slippage tolerance.

Some amount of slippage tolerance is always necessary because the prices of crypto assets are constantly fluctuating. By the time your trade executes, the price may have moved. Setting your slippage tolerance too high, however, leaves room for searchers to sandwich your trades.

**Price Impact**: Crypto markets, like all markets, are based on supply and demand. AMMs maintain “liquidity pools” of assets which they use to fill trades. Each trade drains some amount of this liquidity and moves the asset's price. This price movement is known as “price impact.”

The larger the trade, the bigger the price impact. A trade of $100 ETH will not move the price of ETH very noticeably, since it only makes up a tiny fraction of the available liquidity. A trade of $1,000,000 ETH, however, will noticeably move the price of ETH.

**Transaction Reordering**: Blockchain transactions do not always enter the block in the order that they were submitted. Searchers can “bribe” the validators responsible for creating the block to get them to arrange transactions in a specific sequence. This transaction reordering is what makes all of MEV possible.

**EOA Wallets:**  Externally owned accounts (EOAs) are Ethereum accounts controlled by private keys. EOA wallets — for example: MetaMask, Rainbow, and Rabby Wallet — allow users to (1) send, hold, and receive Ethereum-native tokens, and (2) interact with smart contracts. Unlike smart contract wallets, EOA wallets are usually generated with a seed phrase and do not have any code associated with them.

**Milkman**: The  [Milkman](https://github.com/charlesndalton/milkman)  smart contract ensures trades are executed for the real-time price or better by utilizing a price checker, such as a Uniswap pool or an oracle. Instead of setting a fixed slippage tolerance based on the current market price, DAOs can utilize Milkman to determine a maximum percentage deviation from a real-time price sourced from a price checker, guaranteeing that their trade will finalize at a fair market price. If a trade can’t be executed within the defined price or better, the order remains pending until the price condition is met, or until the trader cancels the order.

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A list of terms & definitions related to CoW Protocol


CoW Protocol Glossary

## TL;DR

-   During the month of  **November**, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of  **$1.49B**, and generated a surplus of  **$11.2M**
-   In terms of Governance, CoW DAO executed CIP-33 and received two important CIP drafts in regards to charging protocol fees and changing the method in which the protocol collects fees
-   In exciting news, CoW Protocol launched a new class of orders called “Programmatic Orders,” launched a configurable CoW Swap widget, took over Istanbul during Devconnect, and participated in several Twitter spaces and podcasts

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of  **$1.49B.**

![1-November-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_November_2023_highlights_ff892a4ef9.webp)

The top 3 batches worth highlighting are the following:

-   **Batch with the highest % of CoW trades**  ([Transaction details](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x3dea3947bfd480bdfed6251c4a31ff4d040c14cc430338afa110ba7885e3de17?tab=graph)**)**. The total batch volume was  **$747,799.76** , and it was created by two traders who were perfectly CoWed for  **98%**  ($734,793.86) of their volume. One trader was buying tBTC for  **$371,378.52**, and the other trader was selling tBTC for  **$384,428 via a partially fillable limit order**.

![2-November-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_November_2023_highlights_2d2caf95bb.webp)

-   **Batch containing the highest volume**  ([Transaction details](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x0c41ee0a2d1c75034c9258579069dd2e8e7a2a5e59703865e2c0ac47343102c7?tab=graph&vis=transfers)**)**: The total batch volume was  **$8,813,659** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **$8.8M of USDT**  **for**  **$8.7M of USDC**.

![3-November-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_November_2023_highlights_550a6dba21.webp)

-   **Batch with the highest amount of surplus**  ([Transaction details](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xb9a63242596218936cb0cd83d2cc460bf7504c563d54a4c2b3e8674f38975d20/?tab=graph&vis=transfers)**)**: The total batch volume was  **$133,898** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **RLB**  **for**  **USDC**. This trader achieved the largest surplus for the month of  **November**  by getting 99.33% surplus, which at the time of trade was roughly $**133,002 USDC**, proving once again that solvers are here to improve your trades, not to attack them.

![4-November-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_November_2023_highlights_90bab101e1.webp)

During the month of  **November**, the top 10 traders traded a total of  **$56M.**

![5-November-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_November_2023_highlights_79e346c7a3.webp)

In the table below you can see the total volume for this month’s biggest trades. The most active trader executed a whopping  **$27M**  in trades with CoW Protocol this month.

![6-November-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_November_2023_highlights_de62650639.webp)

## Solvers

In  **November**, solvers generated a total of  **$11.2M**  in surplus, which is money in the pockets of traders.

![7-November-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_November_2023_highlights_09eda2bfdd.webp)

Below you can find a breakdown of how each solver performed in November.

![8-November-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_November_2023_highlights_a807afb001.webp)

## Governance

It has been a steady month in terms of governance! The CoW cannot be stopped 💪

### Executed Proposals

This month the DAO executed one important proposals:

-   [CIP-33: Should the CoW Treasury Core unit be added to the MEVBlocker Rebates Safe?](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x999a4840ecb71e7edb4102caf19ea5f9ee7b237ece649a0d22eec74f7c1f1c16)

### Draft Proposals

This month, there was 2 new proposals asking for feedback before moving into the next phase, final CIPs, in their current form:

-   [CIP-Draft: Testing Fee Models for CoW Protocol](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-draft-testing-fee-models-for-cow-protocol/1984)
-   [CIP-Draft: Solver Computed Fees & Rank by Surplus](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-draft-solver-computed-fees-rank-by-surplus/2061)

Make sure to read them and leave comments — your feedback is highly appreciated and will help move these important topics forward. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to the CoW DAO, make sure to use the following  [template](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-0-template/28).

## CoWmunity News

-   [Launched a new class of orders with the release of the Programmatic Order Framework](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1722735351972983030?s=20)
-   [Launched a CoW Swap widget](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1724037068610056354?s=20)  to make it easier for projects to integrate with CoW Protocol and enjoy its benefits
-   [Proposed to CoW DAO an entirely new fee collecting method](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1729508014686601621?s=20)  aimed to reduce the selling pressure of $COW tokens by solvers.
-   [Took over Istanbul with our packed participation across different events during the Devconnect week](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1722341346827202687?s=20). Here are all the available talks:
  → Arbitrageurs’ profits, LVR, and sandwich attacks: batch trading as an AMM design response
-   Intent.wtf →  [Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OXMPmpzFXU)  → Advancing Beyond Swap Intents |  [Panel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gxweVY9edU)  → The Role of Intent-Driven Transactions in DeFi’s Evolution
-   Good intentions →  [Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTwC204N-68)  → CoW Swap more than swap intents |  [Panel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n2ChWn1ksQ)  → Intents and MEV Panel
-   Decentralized Scaling summit →  [Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evyjRRteZCg)  → The rise of smart orders |  [Panel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Y-hf5BTWk)  → How do we balance privacy and surveillance?
-   MEV & Intents Day →  [Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoFVSFn181Y)  → The rise of smart orders |  [Panel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xauLHm98zYc)  → Intents
-   [Sponsored the ETH Global Hackthon Istanbul where we had a great list of submissions for our bounties](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1726242733466280436?s=20)
-   Appeared on  [the Bell Curve Podcast to do a breakdown of Frequent Batch Auctions](https://x.com/thebellcurvepod/status/1725193559748272441?s=20), covering why they are superior to other auction types when it comes to DEX trading
-   [Mastercow launched his own treasure hunt](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1725579868581306859?s=20)  to make developers race for a treasure and understand the inner workings of the new Programmatic Order Framework
-   [Brave wallet improved the signing modal for CoWSwap](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1723027440472400107?s=20)  trades to make it easier for their users to understand what the intent they were signing was
-   Wrote an article about the DAO tooling product “[Milkman](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1727326002202935304?s=20)” explaining what it is, and how it works to your DAO’s benefit
-   Joined a Twitter space organized by Taiko debating if “[intents exists outside of Twitter](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1729818776013840586?s=20)”
-   Got featured by Chainpatrol.io on  [“Case studies in web3 brand protection”](https://x.com/ChainPatrol/status/1720096549009838328?s=20)
-   Covered CoW Swap in  [Spanish extensively at the DeFi Lab podcast](https://x.com/DeFi_LaB/status/1720113820624974279?s=20)
-   Wrapped up the MEV series articles with our latest article explaining  [what backrunning is](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1720143397527368001?s=20)
-   Posted a draft on the  [CoW DAO forum listing the reasons on why adding a protocol fee for CoW Protocol](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1720513622474920157?s=20)  is beneficial to the ecosystem and how CoW DAO should approach it
-   CoW Swap got  [integrated into Caddi Finnance](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1721559378401034573?s=20)
-   Jumped on a twitter spaces with Diego Defi to explain to our  [Hispanic community what CoW Swap is](https://x.com/diego_defi/status/1721921766132478295?s=20)  (Alta falopa ;) )

## Product Updates

**Backend**

The backend team has been working hard to improve the product infrastructure. In  **November**, we:

-   Worked on several Driver Colocation tests in prod for the new solver set up
-   Fixed error parsing score_cap CLI argument (caused slightly suboptimal score bidding)
-   Optimised driver pipeline (solve → encode → verify / simulate)
-   Worked on several performance optimization fixes for fetching liquidity for quoting
-   Worked on the liveness/readiness probe for the driver to improve rollover when deploying to the cluster
-   Migrated shadow competition to colocated setup (helps debug performance issues)
-   Worked on several performance improvements for the Enso simulator used in the solver submission checks

**Frontend**

The frontend team has been pushing hard for several improvements in the UI front, as well as the overall UI infrastructure. In  **November**, we:

-   Worked on the landing page for the CoW Swap widget, as well as on the configurator website
-   Widget codebase has been reiterated a few times
-   Improved the performance of loading balances on the CoW Swap UI
-   Improved the robustness of the WatchTower for TWAP orders
-   Worked on expanding the WatchTower capabilities to allow the indexing of all new programmatic order types by implementing an allow/deny list
-   Added widget theming 🌈 to allow teams to configure it to their branding

## Open Job Positions

The CoW Protocol team is currently not hiring

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Welcome back to another CoW update, where we break down the most notable developments of the last few weeks at CoW Protocol.

CoW Protocol November 2023 Highlights

Slippage is the difference between the price at which an order is submitted and the price at which it’s executed.

Since crypto prices fluctuate constantly, it’s necessary to set a “slippage tolerance” for every trade which allows users to accept a slightly higher or slightly lower price for their trades at execution time.

## What is Slippage?

Slippage is the amount that a trade price may vary by between the time the trade is placed and the time it actually executes.

To better understand slippage, let’s take a look at an example.

Let’s say a user places an order to buy 1 ETH while the price of ETH is exactly $3,000. By the time the order executes, however, ETH has shifted slightly in price and the user ends up only paying $2,980 for 1 ETH. The $20 difference between the $3,000 that they initially placed their order at and the $2,980 per ETH price that the order eventually executed for is known as slippage.

## What is a Slippage Tolerance?

![1-what-is-slippage.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_what_is_slippage_0b1a557216.webp)

_The slippage setting on_ [_CoW Swap_](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=slippage-article)

Decentralized exchanges require users to set a “slippage tolerance” percentage every time they make a trade. This determines how much deviation the trader is willing to accept in the price of the asset they are trading.

For example, if a user wants to buy 1 ETH, it might cost them $3,000 at the time they place their trade, but by execution time that price may have changed to $2,950 (approximately 2% less). If they had no slippage tolerance, their trade would fail, potentially still incurring gas fees and forcing them to resubmit the transaction.

Meanwhile, if they set a slippage tolerance of 2% when they place their trade, their trade would be able to execute at prices 2% below or 2% above the quoted price. In this example, this would allow the trade to go through as long as 1 ETH is between $2,940 and $3,060 at execution time.

All decentralized exchanges use slippage tolerances for user trades, so it’s important to understand the concept and know what percentage to use.

## What Slippage Tolerance Should I Use?

As a rule, you should try to use the smallest slippage you can get away with. On most exchanges, the default slippage tolerance is between 0.5% and 2%, however, the optimal slippage tolerance depends on the type of asset you’re trading.

Generally speaking, the more volatile a crypto asset is, the higher a slippage tolerance you’ll need to use.

**For stable assets**: Assets like stablecoins generally require a low slippage tolerance because their prices don’t fluctuate by much. Exchanges specializing in stablecoins (such as Curve) set the default slippage tolerance for these assets at between 0.25% and 0.5%.

**For standard assets**: The standard slippage tolerance for most trades is between 0.5% and 2%. This is a good range to stick to when trading established assets with medium volatility profiles such as Ethereum.

**For volatile assets**: When it comes to cryptocurrencies whose prices jump wildly — such as memecoins or new token launches — users will often need to use a higher slippage tolerance than 2%. There is no hard and fast rule here. Depending on the volatility of the asset, user trades may require a double-digit slippage, maybe even in the high double-digits, in order for the trade to go through.

It’s important to understand, however, that setting a high slippage tolerance leaves you vulnerable to price exploitation in the form of maximal extractable value (MEV).

## The Dangers of High Slippage

While setting a high slippage tolerance helps ensure that your transaction goes through, using too high of a slippage tolerance can be dangerous.

Blockchains like Ethereum process transactions sequentially, meaning that transactions in a block execute one after the other. This, combined with the mechanism of  [automated market makers (AMMs)](/learn/cow-protocol-glossary#:~:text=amm), means that value-extracting bots can strategically place transactions before and after your trade to exploit your slippage tolerance and extract value from you. This type of price exploitation is known as maximal extractable value (MEV).

### Sandwich Attacks

![2-what-is-slippage.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_what_is_slippage_e0af2a8fb5.webp)

_The flow of a sandwich attack_

A  [sandwich attack](/learn/what-is-a-sandwich-attack-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself)  is a form of MEV that can occur whenever a user places a trade with a high slippage tolerance. Specifically, this is a slippage tolerance that is larger than what the market price may call for.

When a user places this trade, an MEV bot (known as a “searcher”) places another transaction before the user transaction, pushing the price of the traded asset up to the original user’s maximum slippage tolerance. The original user’s transaction then goes through, pushing the price up even further. Finally, the searcher sells the asset, cashing out on the price difference.

In the end, the user loses out because their transaction could have gone through at a lower slippage. Instead, the searcher forced the user’s transaction to execute at the limit of its slippage tolerance and kept the difference for themselves.

This isn’t a rare occurrence either, MEV is a systemic problem for chains like Ethereum where MEV losses total over $1.3 billion to date.

## What is Auto-Slippage?

Unfortunately, there is no perfect way to predict what the ideal slippage should be for every trade. In crypto, users are often competing against more sophisticated trading parties and bots who can take advantage of their sub-optimal traders for their own profit.

To protect users from MEV, some exchanges offer auto-slippage functions which automatically calculate the slippage tolerance that trades should use based on the assets they are trading and market conditions.

## CoW Swap: Premium Auto-Slippage and Delegated Trade Execution

![3-what-is-slippage.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_what_is_slippage_4170bdeb89.webp)

One of the exchanges with the most advanced auto-slippage features is CoW Swap. CoW Swap is an intents-based DEX aggregator that uses third parties known as “solvers” to execute trades on behalf of users. Solvers calculate the optimal slippage tolerance for user trades and take on all the risks of MEV.

![4-what-is-slippage.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_what_is_slippage_4f3c2ce1e4.webp)

In fact,  [data shows](https://blog.cow.fi/do-cows-slip-age-less-389150154f84)  that CoW Swap offers a low default slippage the overwhelming majority of the time compared to 0x and 1inch.

On CoW Swap, you can make the perfect trade every time, even if you’ve never heard of “slippage” before!

Trade worry-free at  [swap.cow.fi](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=slippage-article).

large_what-is-slippage-cover-photo.webp

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Slippage occurs in most crypto trades, and it’s an important concept for traders to understand


What is Slippage in Crypto?

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers, and various community members aligned with the vision of providing traders with the best prices and comprehensive MEV protection. CoW DAO is focused on building and maintaining CoW Protocol, a fair and decentralized trading system, and MEV Blocker, an RPC endpoint. CoW Protocol’s technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading through a unique “batch auction” system. This positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum. MEV Blocker is designed to protect transactions from MEV attacks such as front-running and sandwiching. In addition to protecting trades from harmful MEV, MEV Blocker leverages an Order Flow Auction between various searchers and builders to offer rebates to users for certain trades.

[oSnap](https://uma.xyz/osnap)  is a DAO governance tool built and secured by  [UMA](https://uma.xyz/). It allows communities to vote off-chain and automatically execute the successful proposals on-chain. oSnap automatically integrates with the DAO’s  [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/)  space and the Safe wallet holding the DAO’s treasury funds. Transactions approved by the community are validated on-chain and executed without the need for centralized multisig approval.

CoW DAO is looking forward to integrating oSnap, as it will give the DAO several advantages including:

-   A decentralized process to execute successful proposals that no longer requires the involvement of multisig signers → Instead of having the multisig owners push successful proposals on-chain themselves, the oSnap bot will automatically execute them
-   Extra on-chain guarantees through a challenge period → Through oSnap, voters will be able to challenge proposals during a “challenge period” that takes place after the successful passing of a proposal
-   One step closer to a more decentralized and resilient CoW DAO → Integrating oSnap allows CoW DAO to run 100% through on-chain governance without relying on any off-chain infrastructure or trusted parties

## How it works

On a technical level, Snapshot allows users to integrate transaction data into their proposals using its transaction builder tool. Community members can include specific transactions in their proposals for the DAO to execute. Once a proposal is published, Snapshot uses the decentralized hosting service IPFS to store and share this transaction data, assigning it a unique identifier in the process.

Once a proposal is approved, the oSnap system takes charge of submitting the transaction data to UMA’s optimistic oracle. The oracle then verifies that the transaction matches the data stored at the IPFS identifier. If the oracle confirms the match, the transaction is executed using funds from the DAO Safe. However, in the event of an invalid or malicious transaction, the system automatically removes the data before it reaches the blockchain.

This integration is a step forward for CoW DAO’s decentralization. If you are interested in participating in the CoW DAO governance process, you have several options:

-   [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  → CoW DAO’s forum is the main venue for governance-related discussion. Signing up for the forum allows community members to post and participate in discussions.
-   [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)  → CoW DAO’s Snapshot space is a simple voting interface that allows users to vote on proposals. Votes on Snapshot are weighted by the number of vCOW+COW held or delegated to the address used to vote.
-   [Discord](https://discord.gg/cowprotocol)  → The CoW DAO Discord server is currently the main discussion hub for the CoW community and an informal place for governance discussions. The “governance-discussion” channel is where governance matters and proposals are discussed.

## Learn more

[CoW DAO](https://cow.fi/)  is a decentralized organization maintaining CoW Protocol and  [MEV Blocker](https://mevblocker.io/)  for the effective protection of Ethereum traders across DeFi. CoW Protocol leverages batch auctions to find the best prices for user trades, while MEV Blocker maintains a decentralized network of searchers & builders who protect users from MEV and provide them with rebates from profitable backrunning opportunities.

[oSnap](https://uma.xyz/osnap)  is a governance tool secured by UMA and audited by Open Zeppelin. It is free to use and can be integrated in less than 60 seconds.

[UMA](https://uma.xyz/)  is an optimistic oracle that can validate any independently verifiable data on the blockchain. UMA ensures protocol security by incentivizing validators to identify and delete false information passing through the oracle. Since launching in 2020, UMA has secured more than 10,000 critical data assertions. It has never been corrupted.

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

[](https://blog.cow.fi/?source=post_page-----42b8f6c42660--------------------------------)

large_cow-dao-integrates-osnap-for-decentralized-governance-cover-photo.webp

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small_cow-dao-integrates-osnap-for-decentralized-governance-cover-photo.webp

thumbnail_cow-dao-integrates-osnap-for-decentralized-governance-cover-photo.webp

cow-dao-integrates-osnap-for-decentralized-governance-cover-photo.webp

CoW DAO has integrated oSnap as a means of directly executing the results of future Snapshot votes on-chain. This integration eliminates the need for multi-signature wallets, creating a more decentralized and efficient execution process.

CoW DAO integrates oSnap for decentralized governance

## TL;DR

-   During the month of October, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of  **$998M**, and generated a surplus of  **$6.3M**
-   In exciting news, CoW Protocol launched  [fully gasless transactions](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1714633297408696409?s=20),  [dressed up for Halloween](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1717873465028682130?s=20), got some  [love from Binance Research](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1714387540457947396?s=20), and much more

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of **$998M.**

![1-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_october_2023_highlights_132809a9ad.webp)

The top 3 batches worth highlighting are the following:

**Batch with the highest % of CoW trades**  [(Transaction details)](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x924c98ee2a6da650ce0828a2bc722c35f6924e4b490c5ed41f4153f75d85f8aa?tab=orders): The total batch volume was  **$3,078,084.40,** and it was created by two traders who were perfectly CoWed for  **51% ($1,576,169.65)** of their volume. One trader was buying  **DAI for FRAX**, and the other trader was buying  **FRAX for DAI**.

![2-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_october_2023_highlights_d343c2eba3.webp)

**Batch containing the highest volume**  [(Transaction details)](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x9b86f6189c18116fadccb4f262b6cd5bb41c77ab5a988663dc8424b6f89809b3?tab=orders&vis=transfers): The total batch volume was  **$9,150,950.72** and it was created by three traders who were swapping  **DAI**  to  **USDC, DAI** to **ETH, and ETH** to **JOE**.

![3-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_october_2023_highlights_a69b0be379.webp)

**Batch with the highest amount of surplus**  [(Transaction details)](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x6413df8b8351d6177af1da8b0bc0440e01b7a5f160d3d3802c3f784636c7f165/?tab=orders&vis=transfers): The total batch volume was  **$9987,355** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **USDC**  **to ETH**. This trader achieved the largest surplus for the month of October by getting 62 ETH, which was roughly  **$100K (11% surplus),**  extra.

![4-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_october_2023_highlights_00ed78e3c6.webp)

During the month of  **October**, the top 10 traders traded a total of  **$71M.**

![5-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_october_2023_highlights_1b9fdad0ec.webp)

In the table below you can see the total volume for this month’s biggest trades. The most active trader executed a whopping  **$66M**  in trades with CoW Protocol this month.

![6-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_october_2023_highlights_81ec197430.webp)

## Solvers
In  **October**, solvers generated a total of  **$6.3M**  in surplus, which is money in the pockets of traders.

![7-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_october_2023_highlights_04c5a108b4.webp)

Below you can find a breakdown of how each solver performed in October.

![8-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_october_2023_highlights_8a1bd1b03b.webp)

## Governance

It has been a hectic month in terms of governance. CoW DAO executed 3 proposals! After a relaxing month in September, the CoWs came back in force for October 💪.

![9-october-2023-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/9_october_2023_highlights_c5eeb5d39e.webp)

### Executed Proposals

This month the DAO executed three important proposals:

-   [CIP-31: Change CoW DAO’s (cow.eth) Snapshot space settings](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x6dd13bfc9eae35a5f597cea373f21947d4c701ba7ce065c66934c560847484cc)  (As well as  [CIP-31.2: Change CoW DAO’s (cow.eth) Snapshot space settings](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0xf6ff58bd97c8c591d0fd4db3a9082864b7fa85c45734234af49f61f7f770cfb8))
-   [CIP-32: MEV Blocker Funding](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x18ed839f7e3f10615ca28fe05b164856ba4e9cfa5f7d7f7a5fcbc89523392560)
-   [CIP-33: Should the CoW Treasury Core unit be added to the MEVBlocker Rebates Safe?](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x999a4840ecb71e7edb4102caf19ea5f9ee7b237ece649a0d22eec74f7c1f1c16)

### Draft Proposals

This month, there was one new proposal asking for feedback before moving into the next phase, a final CIP, in its current form:

-   [CIP-Draft: Testing Fee Models for CoW Protocol](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-draft-testing-fee-models-for-cow-protocol/1984/1)

Make sure to read the CIP draft proposal and leave comments — your feedback is highly appreciated and helps move these important topics forward. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to the CoW DAO, make sure to use the following  [template](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-0-template/28).

## CoWmunity News

-   Announced  [gasless approvals](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1714633297408696409?s=20), reducing CoW gas emissions and enabling fully ETH-less trading for a wide range of tokens
-   For Halloween, the CoW Swap website got a  [spooky makeover](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1717873465028682130?s=20)  including a custom theme,  [Halloween-themed fortune cookies](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1718609373973324187?s=20), and a  [special Layer3 Quest](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1719021671372533793?s=20)
-   Stackly launched a  [DCA solution built on top of CoW Protocol](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1716533044117389624?s=20)  to Mainnet
-   CoW Swap received coverage in a Binance Research report on  [intents](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1714387540457947396?s=20)
-   The team hosted an Intent.wtf  [Twitter space](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1716762010442940724?s=20)  with Particle Network and the Enso solver
-   The team  [hosted a happy cow-hour](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1715321314594955532?s=20)  on Discord unveiling the new solver-driver architecture. As a special community treat, the team waived all CoW Swap fees for the duration of the hour
-   A grant proposal for the development of a Milkman Safe App  [passed in voting](https://snapshot.org/#/cowgrants.eth/proposal/0x37cb0d505bed0e78283b69779dc6e963382f3a0f050026c4e3ced565a48d3710)  on Snapshot
-   The CoW Protocol team published several articles to the blog:  [Announcing Gasless Approvals on CoW Swap](https://blog.cow.fi/announcing-gasless-approvals-on-cow-swap-0bb803d900c2),  [What is Backrunning? — MEV Attacks Explained](https://blog.cow.fi/what-is-backrunning-mev-attacks-explained-38692250690c), and  [Understanding Order Flow Auctions](https://blog.cow.fi/understanding-order-flow-auctions-5532d4ef2f40)

## Open Job Positions

The CoW Protocol team is currently not hiring

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)



Welcome back to another monthly CoW update, where we break down the most notable developments of the last few weeks at CoW Protocol.


CoW Protocol October 2023 Highlights

## TL;DR

-   During the month of  **April**, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of  **$2.38B**  and generated a surplus of  **$16.6M**
-   In exciting news, CoW DAO began a  [token buyback program](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1785339850394304608), MEV Blocker  [started collecting revenue](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1778084900610228559), and CoW Swap ran an “[I’m feeling lucky”](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1774725067567681674)  campaign for April Fool’s day
-   In terms of Governance, CoW DAO executed  [CIP-40: MEV Blocker Fees](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x67aaf4f3e14f833ea496a5cf29d3c58cd12e36a72b7f36c60393083b87422070),  [CIP-41: Claim and Delegate CoW DAO’s SHU Token Allocation](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x86686d2546586696370f87313cf1dff4705e9d7edeee03e560a84470eaa3f57e), and  [CIP-42: Enhancing Treasury Asset Usage](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0xb6edd841020478bf3c10b51a897c4bde511f11ddf53bf6352edc0fe2b949518a)

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of  **$2.38B.**

![1-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_36cbd49453.webp)

The top 3 batches worth highlighting are the following:

-   **Batch with the highest % of CoW trades (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xf191aa1a7280c1c5ea51c91f11d3b1d3456c57ec37712923b6d030453571b09c?tab=orders)**):**  The total batch volume was  **$2.26M**, and it was created by two traders who were CoWed for  **$2,000,000, (88.5%)**  of the total volume. One trader was buying USDC, the other was selling USDC.

![2-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_cdd6a84049.webp)

-   **Batch containing the highest volume (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xe71b7b029dd274087ef0148d9af8203b62cd0368fb42b6231c4db5dfb985d240?tab=orders&vis=transfers)**):**  The total batch volume was  **$15,474,023** and it was created by two traders — one swapping  **USDT for USDC**  and one swapping  **ETH for FRAX**.

![3-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_fa24438f19.webp)

-   **Batch with the highest amount of surplus (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xfc720a40a9cf1366b7a00c6a4f0f72a64316e07143ba523e672b12ca4b2244f6?tab=orders)**):**  The total batch volume was  **1,000 ETH**, and it was created by a trader swapping ETH for WBTC. They received  **1.05 WBTC (2.09%)**  as surplus.

![4-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_97d7d45c4c.webp)

During the month of  **April**, the top 10 traders traded a total of  **$40,343,807.**

![5-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_861a8be332.webp)

In the table below you can see the total volume for this month’s biggest trades. The most active trader executed a whopping  **$14,687,148**  in trades with CoW Protocol this month.

![6-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_0947456c82.webp)

## Solvers

In  **April**, solvers generated a total of  **$16M**  in surplus, which is money in the pockets of traders.

![7-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_e3f24ac5b9.webp)

Below you can find a breakdown of how each solver performed in April.

![8-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_0b729fd1b0.webp)

## Governance

It was an active month in terms of governance! The CoWs cannot be stopped 💪

![9-cow-dao-april-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/9_cow_dao_april_2024_highlights_ccaeab6849.webp)

### Executed Proposals

The DAO  **executed three important proposals**  this month:

-   [CIP-40: MEV Blocker Fees](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x67aaf4f3e14f833ea496a5cf29d3c58cd12e36a72b7f36c60393083b87422070)
-   [CIP-41: Claim and Delegate CoW DAO’s SHU Token Allocation](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x86686d2546586696370f87313cf1dff4705e9d7edeee03e560a84470eaa3f57e)
-   [CIP-42: Enhancing Treasury Asset Usage](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0xb6edd841020478bf3c10b51a897c4bde511f11ddf53bf6352edc0fe2b949518a)

### Draft Proposals

There were no new draft proposals this month.

## CoWmunity News

-   With CIP-40 passing, MEV Blocker  [began earning revenue from builders](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1778084900610228559)
-   CoW DAO began converting all collected protocol fees from ETH to COW, effectively creating a  [buyback program for the COW token](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1785339850394304608)
-   MEV Blocker  [received an Etherscan integration](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1785007216485130550)  that allows users to view pending transactions submitted through the private RPC
-   CoW Swap  [supported Safe’s token launch](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1782433684219638205)  by offering pre-launch limit orders
-   CoW Swap welcomed April with a  [one-day-only “I’m Feeling Lucky” swap feature](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1774725067567681674)
-   Enabled limit orders for  [amounts larger than the current token balance a user has in their wallet](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1777504272487223712)
-   The Den multisig project  [integrated the CoW Swap widget](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1782412887778333001)  for easy swaps
-   The CoW Swap team traveled to Token 2049 to represent the project

## Product Updates

### Backend

The backend team has been working hard to improve the product infrastructure. In  **April**, we:

-   Finalized the partner fee implementation
-   Cleaned up rank-by-surplus and fee features
-   Worked on exempting CoW AMM orders from protocol fees
-   Tested support for 0x liquidity
-   Worked on colocating Gnosis solvers as quoters
-   Implemented performance improvements to make the system more stable with colocated price estimator

### Frontend

The frontend team has been working hard on improvements in the UI front, as well as the overall UI infrastructure. In  **April**, we:

-   Improved responsiveness on the CoW Swap widget
-   Launched support for creating limit orders beyond the current wallet balance as well
-   Launched the partner fee for the CoW Swap widget
-   Supported a number of integrations including Nanse, Den, Shapeshift, Memeswap, and more
-   Iterated on proposals for adding cross-chain swaps to CoW Swap
-   Worked on migrating CoW Swap blog content to an internal CMS

## Open Job Positions

### Engineering

[Support Engineer with Python](https://boards.eu.greenhouse.io/cowswap/jobs/4332254101)

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Welcome back to CoW DAO highlights, where we break down the most notable developments of the last few weeks at CoW DAO.


CoW DAO April 2024 Highlights


## TL;DR

-   During the month of  **February**, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of  **$1.8B**  and generated a surplus of  **$15.1M**.
-   In terms of Governance, CoW DAO executed CIP-36,37 & 38.
-   In exciting news, CoW Protocol launched the 1st MEV capturing AMM (CoW AMM), got COW token listed in tokenunlocks, and started playing around voiceover videos!

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of  **$1.80B.**

![1-february-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_february_2024_highlights_8bc23c3684.webp)

The top 3 batches worth highlighting are the following:

-   **Batch with the highest % of CoW trades (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x070c090c7fd7e371c170f2e381cdbd4f4ab81553a9d74469aa32a5e89b5748d1?tab=orders)**):**  The total batch volume was  **$1,502,953.2**, and it was created by three traders. Two of these traders were CoWed for  **$374,483.44, (99%)**  of the total batch volume. One trader was buying  **$374K of LINK**  and the other trader was selling  **$374M of LINK**  (Getting settled via partial fills from their total of  **$1.1M LINK**  sell order)**.**

![2-february-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_february_2024_highlights_124f5c0396.webp)

-   **Batch containing the highest volume (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xa50f8b71fff77e767e333401e5caca468860b21ea9d2e15e81e9d52fe41cee7b?tab=orders&vis=transfers)**):**  The total batch volume was  **$11,038,754.45** and it was created by a trader who was swapping  **ETH**  to  **stETH**.

![3-february-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_february_2024_highlights_99850e7562.webp)

-   **Batch with the highest amount of surplus (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x40850075f7c6fda7c27abe24f8f49e0b52ff5222fe3c737da4457ab768f2b522?tab=orders)**):**  The total batch volume was  **$567,243.73** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **ETH**  **to**  **USDT**. This trader achieved the largest surplus for the month of  **February** by getting  **283,933.46 USDT**  extra, which at the time of trade was roughly **50.05% surplus**.

![4-february-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_february_2024_highlights_6cadcb51cc.webp)

During the month of  **February**, the top 10 traders traded a total of  **$21.8M.**

![5-february-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_february_2024_highlights_da09bce9a4.webp)

In the table below you can see the total volume for this month’s biggest trades. The most active trader executed a whopping  **$6.4M**  in trades with CoW Protocol this month.

![6-february-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_february_2024_highlights_06a8c9ba99.webp)

## Solvers

In  **February**, solvers generated a total of  **$15.17M**  in surplus, which is money in the pockets of traders.

![7-february-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_february_2024_highlights_f5eb61a440.webp)

Below you can find a breakdown of how each solver performed in February.

![8-february-2024-highlights.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_february_2024_highlights_2144302bca.webp)

## Governance

It was a hectic month in terms of governance! The CoWs cannot be stopped 💪

## Executed Proposals

The DAO  **executed two important proposals**  this month:

-   [CIP-36: Adjusting and renewing the solver rewards budget](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0x4e58f9c1208121c0e06282b5541b458bc8c8b76090263e25448848f3194df986)
-   [CIP-37: Increasing liquidity for the COW token via Programmatic Order Framework and FM-AMM](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0xbe6a5e04cc284cc88adb0cee505b7bf090e5aabf4e21b2d2168b29cb03d90404)
-   [CIP-38: Solver Computed Fees & Rank by Surplus](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth/proposal/0xfb81daea9be89f4f1c251d53fd9d1481129b97c6f38caaddc42af7f3ce5a52ec)

## Draft Proposals

This month,  **there were no new proposals.**

Make sure to read the proposal and leave comments — your feedback is highly appreciated and will help move this important topic forward. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to the CoW DAO, make sure to use the following  [template](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-0-template/28).

## CoWmunity News

-   Launched  [CoW AMM](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1757783798601986400?s=20), the first live AMM which solves LVR. The new AMM aimed at protecting liquidity providers from the dangers of MEV got quite coverage in the media and across various influencers:  [The block](https://www.theblock.co/post/277425/cow-dao-amm-exchange-mev?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social), [DL news](https://www.dlnews.com/articles/defi/new-cow-swap-amm-will-stop-mev-bots-and-save-users-millions/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=), [Blockworks](https://blockworks.co/news/cow-dao-mev-capturing-amm), [Binance](https://www.binance.com/en/feed/post/2024-02-14-cow-dao-launches-mev-capturing-automated-market-maker-to-address-lvr-problem-4118740461410), [Delphi Digital](https://members.delphidigital.io/feed/cow-swap-releases-lvr-aware-amm), [CoinMarketCap](https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/65cd7aa4639eda40936e4b80/), [EthDailly](https://ethdaily.io/cow-protocol-mev-capturing-amm/), [CoinLive](https://www.coinlive.com/news-flash/442186), [Cryptonews](https://cryptonews.net/news/other/28559567/), [CryptoEconomy](https://crypto-economy.com/cow-dao-launches-automated-market-maker-to-fight-arbitrage-bots/), [OutlierVentures](https://x.com/OVioHQ/status/1758534586881942002?s=20),  [CryptoCondom](https://x.com/crypto_condom/status/1757785824484102356?s=20), [Martin K](https://x.com/koeppelmann/status/1757794954586329217?s=20), [Shoal Research](https://x.com/pt1mfv_/status/1757963151222440096?s=20), [0xKermo](https://x.com/0xKermo/status/1758892911796658541?s=20), [0xSalazar](https://x.com/0xSalazar/status/1759333374865682742?s=20), [PaulIronFinance](https://x.com/paul_ironforce/status/1757784723370160393?s=20)
-   [Revamped the UI](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1762153353956766022?s=20)  to make it easier for users to understand what they are trading and the amounts they are expected to receive
-   Hosted a  [twitter space to explain all things CoW AMM](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1761035749636362532?s=20)  and the inner workings of how it actually solves LVR.
-   To boost CoW AMM outreach, marketing prepared a pair of meme videos to get everyone’s attention around the first MEV capturing AMM.  [Jamie Dimon](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1760740193773212031?s=20) &  [Wolf of Wall street](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1763232025081753674?s=20)
-   [COW token got listed on tokenunlocks](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1762522857697911089?s=20)  and now all the information regarding the COW tokenomics can be easily found there.
-   [COW Tokens can now be leveraged to borrow DAI thanks to Ajnas permissionless pools](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1759132605335601201?s=20)
-   Said goodbye to our longtime  [Goerli Network friend](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1753099953403310084?s=20)  which was replaced by the new Sepolia Testnet
-   Prepared a new  [monthly stats summary for MEV Blocker](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1754539321359806696?s=20)  stats throughout the month
-   [MasterCoW´s treasure hunt](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1754877940175688106?s=20)  came to an end as someone was able to decipher all the clues and claim the prize
-   Felix went on  [Leviathian News](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1755158002720444619?s=20)  to cover all things CoW Swap
-   Started gathering UX research and feedback on how can CoW Swap Limit orders improve ([Poll 1](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1755565833739292693?s=20),  [Poll 2](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1759989378066038957?s=20),  [Poll 3](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1762619014369407131?s=20))
-   Worked on multiple blogspost aimed at improving CoW Swap´s SEO results:  [January 2024 Monthly highlights](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1756486330627084549?s=20),  [What does an MEV Blocker do?](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1756828056134754522?s=20),  [CoW DAO launches 1st MEV Capturing AMM](https://blog.cow.fi/cow-dao-launches-the-first-mev-capturing-amm-bc7199e217a3),  [What is LVR?](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1761070004844511477?s=20)
-   Anna & Andrea jumped on  [Strange water podcast to discuss](https://x.com/CoWSwap/status/1759899359095709866?s=20)  how a fair competition of solvers fixes DeFI.

## Product Updates

**Backend**

The backend team has been working hard to improve the product infrastructure. In  **February**, we:

-   Simplified transaction submission logic for solvers
-   Implemented several changes in the backend to make it compatible with CoWAMM
-   Looked into providing more attractive quotes by allowing internalization of trades to Solvers
-   Developed a new automated spam protection system for the backend
-   Removed goerli infra
-   Worked on adapting all backend solver logic to rank by surplus instead of score
-   Moved the entire node infra to Reth.

**Frontend**

The frontend team has been pushing hard for several improvements in the UI front, as well as the overall UI infrastructure. In  **February**, we:

-   Deprecated Goerli from the front end
-   Revamped the entire UI with a new modal: Display confirmation information while signing to be able to compare values in the app and in the wallet, Custom recipient displaying unification, “Order submitted” popup styles fixes, “Order confirmed” screen styles fixes
-   Shipped the new CoW AMM landing page
-   Worked on several fixes such as handling errors, Sepolia crash, Twap order cancelation issue, Issue with localstorage growing too much
-   Made several improvements to the Widget
-   Events from widget to integrator (order submitted, order filled, etc.)
-   Sounds and images customization
-   Hide connect/account button in the header
-   Option to disable “Connect wallet” button
-   Improve wallet provider integration between app and integrator

## Open Job Positions

There are currently no open positions.

Convinced you can contribute to Cow Protocol?  [Get in touch](https://discord.com/invite/cowprotocol)

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CoW Protocol February 2024 Highlights

As a pioneer in the field of intents, CoW Swap has consistently brought faster, easier, and safer trading to DAOs and DeFi enthusiasts.

As DeFi grows and transactions become ever-more complex, the friction of having to sign and make orders manually becomes more pronounced. Traders looking to place recurring orders as a part of a complex trading strategy, DAO operators responsible for managing a treasury, and individuals tired of signing repetitive transactions could all benefit from a system that allows for automated order placement.

Today, CoW Protocol is proud to announce the release of two features that take the pain out of order placement and open up a wide range of possibilities for automation.

To start off, we’re introducing a new order primitive to the world of DeFi. We call it “Programmatic Orders”. Programmatic Orders are orders that create more orders. They require just one signature to create, then execute when on-chain conditions (prices, volumes, balances, times, etc.) are met. Programmatic Orders can execute indefinitely into the future, automating everything from complex trading strategies to advanced order types, portfolio management, DAO operations, and more.

Alongside Programmatic Orders, CoW Protocol is launching the Programmatic Order Framework. As the name implies, it’s a framework that allows for the easy creation of Programmatic Orders.

Below, we take a deeper look at Programmatic Orders, the Programmatic Order Framework, and the technical details necessary for implementation. We also call on the DeFi ecosystem to submit proposals for building applications on top of the Programmatic Order Framework through the  [CoW Grants Program](https://grants.cow.fi/).

## The current state of programmatic actions

The DeFi space currently supports very simple programmatic actions — for example, individual limit orders. Unfortunately, users have to trust a centralized operator to execute these actions correctly and fairly.

Despite the rise of autonomous agents in the wake of initiatives like ERC-1271, the vast majority of interactions are performed manually, which means there is a dependency on individuals, and a central point of failure.

Even when orders are executed properly, users still have to sign a transaction every time they want to place a new order. This may not be an issue for one-off transactions, but it starts to become a nuisance for frequent, recurring transactions.

The Programmatic Order Framework is built to address these problems.

## The Programmatic Order Framework: A decentralized solution for automated orders

At its core, the Programmatic Order Framework brings simplicity to order creation by automating the boilerplate code necessary for order placement. This allows DeFi users to programmatically create any set of orders and automatically approve them for execution with just a single signature.

Users can create advanced order types (such as Stop Loss and TWAP orders), automate DAO payrolls, and create or destroy multiple orders with just one on-chain transaction. Thanks to a “WatchTower” relayer, orders built with the Programmatic Order Framework execute automatically whenever certain on-chain conditions are met, eliminating the need for tedious and repetitive signatures for programmatic actions.

The framework is a plug-and-play system that takes in order logic and executes orders in perpetuity based on on-chain conditions. Creating orders only requires coding the order logic itself. The rest of the swap components like order creation, order validation, signature validation, API calls, order placement, and order settlement are provided by the framework itself.

![1-programmatic-order-framework.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_programmatic_order_framework_5ee644e722.webp)

The key unlock of the Programmatic Order Framework is the low cost of deploying, updating, and deleting orders in large quantities. Developers only need to write code specifying the particular type of order they’d like to execute and the framework takes care of everything else — storing the data, validating parameters, and placing orders.

The WatchTower relayer verifies that order conditions are met, validates the order signature, and places the order on behalf of the user’s smart contract. To make deploying Programmatic Orders easy, CoW Protocol runs a default WatchTower that users can route orders through. However, users can also run their own WatchTower instance for maximum privacy.

## The all-in-one order automation kit

With the Programmatic Order Framework, a single signature can create hundreds of Programmatic Orders. The WatchTower monitors on-chain order conditions continuously and places orders whenever these conditions are met.

For example, a DAO with a diverse treasury can set up conditional orders for each token within its treasury. Based on these conditions, the framework may initiate a swap to rotate into stables when the treasury value rises above a certain threshold, or it may initiate a payout for DAO contractors on a given day of the month.

As the treasury receives various tokens, the framework executes trades accordingly, making DAO financial operations simple and automatic.

## Benefits of the Programmatic Order Framework

The Programmatic Order Framework unlocks a world of convenience for individuals and on-chain organizations:

-   **Leverage on-chain conditions**: Build highly complex use-cases that rely on custom conditional order logic through the Programmatic Order Framework. Create orders that get picked up by the WatchTower on a certain date, once the balance of your contract or wallet is above a defined threshold, or based on other on-chain conditions
-   **Deploy orders en masse**: Create hundreds or even thousands of orders with a single on-chain transaction. Developers can also mass-update orders all at once with a single gas payment by simply updating the Merkle root with another transaction
-   **Execute many orders in parallel**: In a traditional smart contract wallet, orders execute sequentially. With the Programmatic Order Framework, the WatchTower monitors your orders and executes them as soon as the on-chain conditions are met, meaning you can execute many orders simultaneously

Most importantly, the framework is  **fully decentralized**, providing 100% trustless execution with no intermediate contracts or centralized parties.

## Examples & use-cases

With the Programmatic Order Framework, you can program a limitless number of use-cases:

-   **Special order types**: Gone are the days of centralized exchanges offering order types you can’t get in DeFi. Program intricate order types like stop-loss, good-after-time, and take-profit orders — plus many more. CoW Swap’s very own  [TWAP feature](https://blog.cow.fi/why-twap-25d9a0f690f4)  is built using the Programmatic Order Framework
-   **Automated DAO operations**: Blockchain-native organizations like DAOs process hundreds or even thousands of transactions every month. Thanks to the Programmatic Order Framework, your DAO can automate payroll, treasury diversification, fee collection, or any other type of repetitive transaction
-   **Portfolio rebalancing**: Set up order logic to programmatically rebalance assets based on a portfolio value. Automatically diversify based on market conditions or use custom logic to manage loan risk, farm yield, or hedge positions
-   **Private conditional orders**:  Thanks to the framework’s support for private WatchTower configurations, traders can place highly complex conditional orders while simultaneously keeping them private. Buy and sell tokens through a recurring strategy while keeping your parameters hidden
-   **Protocol integrations**: The Programmatic Order Framework isn’t  _just_  for Safe! DeFi protocols can leverage its power to assist with recurring protocol-level transactions like loan liquidations
-   **Easy transaction modules**: Program custom functionality into any order type. Companies can build DAO tooling with a fraction of the complexity. Focus on building adoption rather than fiddling with backend tech

With just a few lines of code, the Programmatic Order Framework brings convenience and predictability to all types of DeFi actions.

## What will you build, anon?

CoW Protocol is bringing Programmatic Orders to Ethereum through the Programmatic Order Framework. Create any order type you can imagine and deploy it instantly — all within the security of your own smart contract wallet.

The  [CoW Grants Program](https://grants.cow.fi/)  is also putting out a request for proposals relating to the Programmatic Order Framework. Have an idea for a solution built on top of the framework (especially one that includes a UI)? Submit a grant proposal!

The Programmatic Order Framework is now live. Read the documentation  [here](https://hackmd.io/pmZX_qT2Q1yw59KiiT6TPQ)  to get started.

Have questions? The CoW Protocol team is here to help: join us on  [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/cowprotocol)  or send us a  [Twitter DM](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap).

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

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Programmatic Orders enable a world of possibilities in DeFi; they’re now easier to create than ever thanks to CoW Protocol’s Programmatic Order Framework

Introducing the Programmatic Order Framework, from CoW Protocol

## TL;DR

-   During the month of  **July**, CoW Protocol handled a total volume of  **$865M**, and generated a surplus of  **$4.8M**
-   In exciting news, CoW Protocol  [launched CoW Hooks](https://thedefiant.io/cowswap-enables-complex-swaps-with-hooks), completed a big  [overhaul of surplus notifications](https://blog.cow.fi/announcing-cow-swap-surplus-notifications-f679c77702ea), processed a  [$27.3 million swap for Nexus Mutual](https://www.theblock.co/post/240750/nexus-mutual-diversifies-27-3-million-into-rocket-eth-using-cow-swap?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social), and much more

## Protocol Stats

This month, CoW Protocol settled a total of  **$865M.**
![1-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_july_2023_highlight_47dd26561a.webp)

This month, the top 3 batches worth highlighting are the following:

-   **Batch with the highest % of CoW trades (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xf5fcc8147ebc22122407d514770e2473c2536ff5768780e560076cfe8b020feb?tab=orders&vis=trades)**).** The total batch volume was  **$514,649.23**, and it was created by two traders who were CoWed for  **10% ($49,916)** of the batch volume. One trader was selling  **GHO** with **USDC**, and the other trader was selling  **USDC**  with  **GHO**.
![2-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_july_2023_highlight_11e4b6d7ec.webp)

-   **Batch containing the highest volume (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0x1371ea08e02d465f3225a98f6c73b90473b49493adb6791e5443112173adc974?tab=graph)**)**: The total batch volume was  **$26,737,269.23** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **ETH**  **to**  **rETH**.
![3-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/3_july_2023_highlight_51e10b7ef8.webp)

-   **Batch with the highest amount of surplus (**[**Transaction details**](https://explorer.cow.fi/tx/0xc54930ec6a9b45490e069bbf1a6159f056ea35b64f0c8fbfa4766ef869f5cf37?tab=graph)**):**  The total batch volume was  **2,300 ETH** and it was created by a single trader who was swapping  **ETH**  **to**  **stETH**. This trader achieved the largest surplus for the month of  **July**  by getting  **46 stETH**  extra, which at the time of trade was roughly  **$87,139.36K**  (**2.04%**  surplus).
![4-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/4_july_2023_highlight_7887ec7eb7.webp)

During the month of  **July**, the top 10 traders traded a total of  **$27M.**
![5-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/5_july_2023_highlight_40c0cc45e5.webp)

In the table below you can see the trade volume that CoW Swap traders have executed as well as the total volume for all trades. Our most active trader executed a whopping  **$7.5M** in trades with CoW Protocol this month.
![6-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/6_july_2023_highlight_d1c9054351.webp)

## Solvers

In  **July**, solvers generated a total of  **$4.8M**, which is money in the pockets of traders.
![7-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/7_july_2023_highlight_5efbb058a2.webp)

Below you can find a breakdown of how each solver performed in July.

![8-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/8_july_2023_highlight_544663fea9.webp)

## Governance

It has been a quiet month in terms of executed proposals, the CoWs were relaxing!
![9-july-2023-highlight.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/9_july_2023_highlight_a85b28a529.webp)

### Draft Proposals

This month, there were two new proposals asking for feedback before moving into the next phase, final CIPs, in their current form:

-   [Adjust Solver Rewards to Allow for a Higher Cap](https://forum.cow.fi/t/adjust-solver-rewards-to-allow-for-higher-cap/1842/1)
-   [CIP-28: Should CoW DAO send its profits to the CoW Treasury Core unit to generate extra revenues?](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-28-should-cow-dao-send-its-profits-to-the-cow-treasury-core-unit-to-generate-extra-revenues/1805)

### Technical Discussions

As an “agora” for technical topics on batch auctions or CoW Protocol-related topics, the forum surfaced some very interesting posts:

1.  [Merge Settlement Contract and Uni v4](https://forum.cow.fi/t/merge-settlement-contract-and-uni-v4/1769)
2.  [Automated Treasury Management Methodology](https://forum.cow.fi/t/automated-treasury-management-methodology/1799)
3.  [Fast Liquidity in CoW](https://forum.cow.fi/t/fast-liquidity-in-cow/1841)

Make sure to read them and leave comments — your feedback is highly appreciated and will help move these important topics forward. If you are interested in submitting a proposal to the CoW DAO, make sure to use the following  [template](https://forum.cow.fi/t/cip-0-template/28).

## CoWmunity News

-   Launched  [CoW Hooks](https://thedefiant.io/cowswap-enables-complex-swaps-with-hooks), allowing users to execute multiple DeFi actions like swapping, bridging, staking, depositing, borrowing, & more through a single intent
-   Released a CoW Swap widget that allows any dApp to inject the CoW Swap UI directly into their website
-   Upgraded surplus notifications on  [the swap page](https://swap.cow.fi/)  to show users how much surplus they have received after every trade, as well as their overall surplus through the wallet overview page
-   Nexus Mutual used CoW Swap to  [diversify $27.3 million into Rocket Pool ETH](https://www.theblock.co/post/240750/nexus-mutual-diversifies-27-3-million-into-rocket-eth-using-cow-swap?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social)
-   Aave DAO swapped aBAL & aWETH into an 80/20 Balancer pool  [in a trade worth close to $2 million](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1678498134195044361?s=20)
-   Andre Canidio from the the CoW Research Team  [published a paper](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1679883540740325376?s=20)  exploring a novel method for making batch AMMs more efficient
-   The CoW Swap team  [headed to Paris](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1680848132173713408?s=20)  to take on ETH CC where CoW Swap  [hosted an MEV day](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1671216421660147712?s=20)  and  [participated in a “Desiging a DEX” panel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K-QX6HtoiM)
-   MEV Blocker  [surpassed 4 million transactions](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap/status/1684602457056563200?s=20), protecting over $11 billion of trading volume
-   A grant proposal for “Improvement and Enhancement of the CoW Swap Explorer” was  [approved through Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cowgrants.eth/proposal/0xa9bedf14d3b6fc01c5944390c9ef2a153e0cecc56f4354e198a2ba873900fb18)
-   A grant application for v2 of the Milkman contract  [was posted to the forum](https://forum.cow.fi/t/grant-application-milkman-2-0/1840?u=middleway.eth)
-   Published several articles on our blog:  [CoW Hooks: You are in control](https://blog.cow.fi/cow-hooks-you-are-in-control-480ccb40044a),  [Announcing CoW Swap Surplus Notifications](https://blog.cow.fi/announcing-cow-swap-surplus-notifications-f679c77702ea)  and  [What is Frontrunning?](https://blog.cow.fi/what-is-frontrunning-b2641ad7af21)

## Product Updates

**Backend**

The backend team has been working hard to improve the product infrastructure. In  **July**, we:

-   Deployed arak to start indexing liquidity-related events
-   Identified and proposed fixes for CIP-20 support in co-located driver
-   Recorded order events into a database for accurate measurements for our SLAs
-   Stored solver addresses with the winning quotes for CIP-27
-   Ran more price estimators
-   Made minor driver bug fixes and consistency changes

**Frontend**

The frontend team has been pushing hard for several improvements in the UI front as well as the overall UI infrastructure. In  **July**, we:

-   Deployed a hotfix with WalletConnect v2 support
-   Worked on displaying all parts and filled % for the TWAP UI
-   Added default UTMs for links (to credit volume to people that found CoW Swap using cow.fi)
-   Made bug fixes and put final touches on TWAP
-   Made AppData changes to the frontend stack (app-data, SDK, Explorer, CoW Swap)
-   Implemented a Google analytics update for the Grants website

## Open Job Positions

The CoW Protocol team is currently looking to hire:

### Engineering

[Backend Engineer with RustRemote or Lisbon](https://boards.eu.greenhouse.io/cowswap/jobs/4208538101)

For more information on our latest job openings, visit:  [https://cow.fi/careers](https://cow.fi/careers)

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

CoW Protocol July 2023 Highlights

After three years and thousands of hours of research with crypto whales, DeFi degens, finance bros, and specialized fortune tellers called “blockchain oracles”, CoW Swap has discovered that the secret to investing in crypto is simply  getting lucky.

That’s why CoW Swap is proud to announce its newest innovation — the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.

That’s right — inspired by Google’s iconic search feature, CoW Swap is adding a splash of luck to web3. Just select a sell token, tap “I’m Feeling Lucky”, and let CoW Swap’s best-in-class solver network buy a random shitcoin for you.

## Putting the “luck” in “hodl”

Have you ever seen a crypto millionaire and thought “Damn, that was all luck!”

Wish you could “get lucky” the same way?

Well now you can.

Just head over to  [CoW Swap](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_campaign=blog-feeling-lucky)  and use the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button right in the swap modal to let luck pick your new favorite token!

![1-feeling-lucky.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_feeling_lucky_609c959c95.webp)

## How to get lucky

To get lucky, simply:

1.  Navigate to  [CoW Swap](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_campaign=blog-feeling-lucky)
2.  Pick ETH or a stablecoin as your sell token
3.  Click the “I’m feeling lucky” button where the “Swap” button normally appears
4.  CoW Swap will then pick a random “lucky” token for you as your “buy” token
5.  ????
6.  Profit!!!! (not financial advice)

Don’t worry — you’ll have a chance to confirm your trade before you place it. If you trust the luck of the CoW draw, simply click “Swap” once your random token appears and your transaction will proceed as normal.

## Luck out with CoW Swap this April 1

So if you’re tired of being the fool, let CoW Swap turn your luck around. No joke, the feature is real and  [live on CoW Swap](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_campaign=blog-feeling-lucky)  for both Ethereum Mainnet and Gnosis Chain!

They say anything goes up in a bull market… While we can’t guarantee that your lucky token will pump, we can promise that your trades will always be backed by CoW Swap’s signature MEV protection and the best prices in DeFi.

Degen in peace this April 1 and let luck take the wheel with  [CoW Swap](https://swap.cow.fi/#/swap?utm_campaign=blog-feeling-lucky)!

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Find your lucky clover in CoW Swap’s greener pastures


CoW Swap Introduces “I’m Feeling Lucky” Mode for DeFi Trades

Don’t worry, trade happy! CoW Swap has been busy cooking up Conditional Orders, an architecture that allows developers (and their users) to create sophisticated orders of all kinds. At the core of this system is a flexible smart contract wallet that allows the protocol to implement its unique logic. What’s better than standing on the shoulders of giants in the ecosystem and within the Gnosis family  [Safe](https://safe.global/)?

Wait? Smart contract wallet?

That’s right: CoW Swap pioneered intents across the Ethereum space for EOAs (think MetaMask, Trezor, Trust Wallet, etc.), but what’s less well-known is that the protocol can actually work in a similar way for smart contracts by relying on a flexible intents system with the ERC-1271 integration. It sounds technical, but this standard is basically designed to allow smart contracts to “Sign” a message like any other EOAs. This is a familiar procedure for the seasoned CoWmunity, but Conditional Orders now allow anyone to define a set of conditions and have the smart contract wallet do the clicking for you.

Incubated through the  [CoW Grants Program](https://grants.cow.fi/), and supported by the Safe team throughout the testing/auditing process, the ExtensibleFallbackHandler is now live. Sounds complicated, we know! Put simply, this is a way to add extra powers to your Safe, while preserving the strong security guarantees that the Safe is well known for.

Upgrading your Safe’s fallback handler is a secure process, all you have to do is tick a box when placing an order, and your Safe upgrade will be batched with your order, making for a single-transaction order placement and upgrade. The contracts that implement this system have been audited both by an independent auditor, and an external auditor from Ackee Blockchain (You can read the final audit reports  [here](https://github.com/cowprotocol/composable-cow/tree/ab3addad9bc05acdbf5fb040eb5c336209b58e31/audits)).

The owl-eyed among you would be aware that smart contracts have always been able to use CoW Protocol, though this required both a transaction on chain to signal your intent, and that the orders be fixed (not conditional). Wave goodbye to these limitations!

With an ExtensibleFallbackHandler+ComposableCoW-enabled Safe you now benefit from all the CoW Swap features directly from your smart contract wallet: MEV protection, no failed swap transactions, at-execution path discovery, conditional orders, and batching if you need to do pesky things like approve or wrap ETH.

If you’re technically inclined, check out how you can  [start building with conditional orders using ComposableCoW](https://hackmd.io/@mfw78/HyuvoGt9h#), or drop into  [#tech-talk on our discord](https://discord.gg/cowprotocol)! While you’re busy reading up on how to write the latest and greatest conditional order, you could also be gradually buying up more of your favorite token using TWAP!

## What is a Safe fallback handler?

Long story short, Safe is designed to have strong security guarantees over basic operations (think executing transactions, spending your precious tokens, etc.), but there’s not enough time to program all functionality that a user may require. Therefore, the Safe can “forward” all function requests that it doesn’t recognize to another contract (the fallback handler).

**CRITICALLY**: Fallback handlers do  **NOT**  have the same authority as the Safe from which they were called. Due to the security architecture of Safe, it is not possible for the fallback handler to execute transactions on behalf of the Safe.

OK, the fallback handler can’t execute a transaction for you, so why should you care? Safe doesn’t by default (without a fallback handler) support ERC-1271 signatures. The standard deployment of a Safe deploys with CompatibilityFallbackHandler as the fallback handler, which has limited ERC-1271 support (meaning: it cannot read and thus, cannot be automated). CoW Swap intents super-charge this by allowing a Safe to also specify a smart contract that can sign messages for a particular application on its behalf.

This is where ComposableCoW takes over! 🐮🎶 You can think of ComposableCoW as an autonomous agent, signing orders that meet whatever conditions you have specified. After you create your first conditional order, the second transaction you see in the batch will enable ComposableCoW, which tells your Safe “I want ComposableCoW to be able to sign orders from CoW Protocol”. TWAP is just a conditional order type that works with ComposableCoW.

**CRITICALLY**: Due to the design of ERC-1271, all signature verification is  **read-only**  which means it is  **impossible**  for a ComposableCoW or any conditional order to directly access user funds (the movement of funds during a swap is initiated by the settlement contract  **ONLY**).

In summary, to make CoW Swap’s new TWAP order feature work:

-   Safe users need to upgrade their fallback handler(enables conditional signing)
-   Conditional orders are automatically placed in the CoW Protocol order book (now signed with the new handler)
-   Automated signing of orders means you may hear less of CoW’s trademark moo. Feel free to set  [this](https://github.com/cowprotocol/cowswap/blob/develop/apps/cowswap-frontend/public/audio/success.mp3)  as your phone’s notification tone if suffering withdrawal symptoms 🐄

CoW Swap takes security very seriously. The underlying Safe fallback handler code has been fully audited by both the Safe and CoW teams as well as by two independent external auditors, G0 and Ackee Blockchain. You can find all the audit final reports  [here](https://github.com/cowprotocol/composable-cow/tree/ab3addad9bc05acdbf5fb040eb5c336209b58e31/audits).

The solution presented follows Safe’s high security standards. What’s more, the fallback handler isn’t just about placing orders. It allows limitless and, as of yet, unknown functionality. Maybe you want to:

-   Define a custom method handler for any non-standard method (if you really want you can turn your Safe into an ERC-20 token)
-   Define a custom EIP-712 domain verifier, whereby a contract implementing ISafeSignatureVerifier can do your menial signing automatically (it is this interface that ComposableCoW implements to power the shiny new TWAP orders)
-   Define a set of methods (interfaceId) that your Safe supports, and report such using ERC-165

The architecture for the ExtensibleFallbackHandler can be viewed  [here](https://hackmd.io/@mfw78/HyuvoGt9h).

**NOTE**: Audits are not a guarantee that code is free from error. Use with caution.

We wish you much surplus and happy  [TWAP order trading](https://swap.cow.fi/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=fallback-handler)! Give  [TWAP orders a try](https://swap.cow.fi/swap?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=fallback-handler)  today and let us know what you think by reaching out on  [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)  or  [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/cowprotocol)!

## About CoW DAO

CoW DAO is an open organization of developers, traders, market makers and many more community members aligned with its vision. CoW DAO is focused on fair and decentralized trading systems — in particular, building, maintaining and advancing the CoW Protocol. CoW Protocol technology powers a network of traders and solvers, enabling trustless and efficient peer-to-peer trading. Leveraging batch auctions as a key concept uniquely positions CoW Protocol as native trading infrastructure for discrete-time settlement layers like Ethereum and enables fair and accessible trading to its users.

🐦 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoWSwap)| 📒 [Documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/)| 💬  [Forum](https://forum.cow.fi/)  | 📊  [Analytics](https://dune.com/cowprotocol)  | 📸 [Snapshot](https://snapshot.org/#/cow.eth)

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Don’t worry, trade happy! Upgrading your Safe fallback handler is a secure process. This Safe fallback handler extension has been developed by the CoW Swap team in collaboration with the Safe team, and has undergone a successful audit.

All you need to know about CoW Swap’s new Safe fallback handler

CoW Swap has recently become one of the first DeFi projects to launch native support for Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP) orders. TWAP orders spread out large trades into multiple smaller orders. This reduces slippage & price impact and helps traders enter or exit a market position at an average price.

TWAP has been around for a while on centralized exchanges, but CoW TWAP — CoW Swap’s version of TWAP — comes with several important benefits that traders won’t find on CEX alternatives.

## Benefits of TWAP orders

### Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA)

TWAP orders help automate the dollar-cost averaging (DCA) investment strategy. DCA involves investing a fixed amount of money in an asset at regular intervals, regardless of the asset’s price, in order to reduce the impact of market volatility.

In highly volatile markets like crypto, the risk of making a large investment just before a sudden price shift is significant. TWAP minimizes this risk by breaking down your investment into smaller, evenly distributed purchases over time. This finds an average market price and helps smooth out market volatility. Want to buy an asset but you’re not sure exactly when to click the “Swap” button? TWAP-enabled DCA means you can forget about timing the market and get the average price instead.

Investors can also use TWAP to sell their positions through dollar-cost averaging. Simply switch the assets you’re swapping and TWAP will help you exit the market for an average price.

Riding the crypto waves has never been so s-moooo-th! 🐮

### Reduce your price impact

Large orders move markets and traders often get worse prices as a result. By splitting up large trades into multiple smaller orders, TWAP helps mitigate the negative effects of price impact. A bunch of smaller orders affect prices much less than one big order, meaning you end up getting a better deal for your trades.

### Reduce your slippage

Finding the right slippage can be tricky. Set it too low and your order might not go through, too high and you could fall prey to MEV. Using TWAP to split up a large order into smaller parts allows you to use a smaller slippage tolerance for each part. The MEV bots can stay hungry…

## Why TWAP with CoW Swap?

Those familiar with CoW Swap know there’s always something extra in our barn 😉. Below are some exclusive benefits you’ll only find on CoW TWAP.

### Always receive 100% of your order surplus

CoW Swap searches for surplus opportunities on every order and TWAP orders are no exception. In fact, since TWAP orders are split up into different parts, each part is another opportunity to find surplus for your trade.

In our tests, selling 1,000 ETH in four parts of 250 ETH each allowed us to get a price for the order that was 3.5% better than selling the 1,000 ETH all at once! This was in large part thanks to CoW Swap’s batch auctions that include finding  [Coincidence of Wants](https://blog.cow.fi/what-are-cows-on-cow-swap-e72baaa4678a)  and other price improvements.

### Get price protection
![1-why-twap.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_why_twap_bd8b2c362b.webp)

After you select the assets you want to trade through CoW Swap’s TWAP interface, you’ll need to indicate the number of order parts you want to use, as well as the total duration over which you’d like your TWAP order to execute. From these selections, the interface automatically calculates each part duration and the amounts you will be buying and selling per part.

Unique to TWAPs on CoW Swap is the “price protection” feature. Price protection ensures that your order will stop executing if the market price of the assets moves by more than your specified percentage.

## Get started with CoW TWAP

To get started with TWAP orders on CoW Swap, you’ll first need to ensure that you have a Safe wallet. Currently, TWAP is only available through Safe but support for more wallets will be coming soon.

Don’t have a Safe? No problem! Create one  [here](https://app.safe.global/share/safe-app?appUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fswap.cow.fi&chain=eth). After you make a Safe, you’ll also need to upgrade your fallback handler. Learn what this means and how to do it  [here](https://blog.cow.fi/all-you-need-to-know-about-cow-swaps-new-safe-fallback-handler-8ef0439925d1).

Once your Safe is fully set up, you can access TWAP directly through the  [CoW Swap order interface](https://swap.cow.fi/#/1/advanced?utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=why-twap).

TWAP orders on Ethereum Mainnet have a $5,000 minimum per order part. This ensures that gas costs are relatively low compared to the entire order size, even with multiple parts involved. Smaller traders can also enjoy CoW TWAP on Gnosis Chain where part minimums are only $5 (and the gas is much cheaper!)

You can find the full how-to guide on CoW TWAP orders  [here](https://blog.cow.fi/how-to-use-cow-swaps-twap-orders-via-safe-wallet-1a0854484dfb).

As always, on CoW Swap:

-   All prices are aggregated from the best available on-chain and off-chain liquidity
-   Traders are fully protected from MEV
-   Orders are free to place and free to cancel
-   Traders never pay for failed transactions
-   Transactions are gasless as fees are paid in the sell token

Happy TWAPping!
![2-why-twap.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/2_why_twap_6f088c5738.webp)

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How CoW Swap’s new feature, Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP) orders helps you get better prices for your trades


Why TWAP?

Maximal extractable value (MEV) has become a controversial topic in the DeFi community over the last few years as the practice has gained wider adoption. Some blockchain projects take steps to protect their users from suffering MEV, but there are also advocates of the practice who argue that it contributes to market efficiency and validator compensation.

[CoW DAO](https://cow.fi/)  creates products that protect Ethereum users from negative outcomes, so it’s clear that participants in the DAO are no fans of MEV. The technical innovations that MEV searchers have pioneered in the pursuit of maximizing profits, however, are indeed impressive.

Thankfully, this tech can be put to good use in a way that benefits users and still makes money: Rather than being MEV searchers, these users should consider becoming CoW Protocol solvers.

## What is a Searcher?

Searchers are DeFi market participants, most often bots, that monitor pending Ethereum transactions for arbitrage opportunities.

Captured arbitrage is known as  [maximal extractable value (MEV)](/learn/understanding-mev-protection), and it’s a pernicious form of price exploitation that occurs across all types of transactions. To date, MEV has cost traders over $1.5 billion in losses. Most of these losses have been facilitated by searchers who pocket a large portion of the arbitrage for themselves.

## What is a Solver?

![1-switch-from-searcher-to-solver.webp](https://celebrated-gift-f83e5c9419.media.strapiapp.com/1_switch_from_searcher_to_solver_7763c26103.webp)

CoW Protocol is a meta DEX aggregator that relies on bonded third parties known as “[solvers](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/concepts/introduction/solvers)” to execute user trades. The protocol uses an  [intents-based trading system](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/concepts/introduction/intents)  where user intents get grouped into  [batches](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/concepts/introduction/batch-auctions). The solver that can execute the orders at the best price wins the right to settle the batch (find out more about how CoW Protocol works  [here](https://docs.cow.fi/category/concepts).)

Solvers are compensated in COW tokens for settling batches, incentivizing them to compete to find better prices and win the right to execute user intents. In return for this compensation, solvers provide users with a number of benefits including:

-   Finding optimal prices for the trades in a batch
-   Protecting users from MEV by executing transactions on their behalf
-   Providing abstraction that allows for benefits like gasless trades, transaction bundles, directly tapping into LPs, and more

## Searchers vs. Solvers

Fundamentally, searchers and solvers optimize for the same thing: maximizing profits. However, they serve different purposes, so their incentives diverge.

Searchers make money by performing MEV attacks on vulnerable transactions — giving users worse prices and keeping the difference for themselves. Searchers are incentivized to maximize their profits while ensuring that they are bidding enough for their transactions to be included in the next block.

In Ethereum, searchers work to out-bid each other to have their transactions included and make money. This is similar to what solvers do on CoW Protocol. The difference, of course, is that  **searchers benefit validators while solvers benefit users.**

## Why Become a Solver?

The fundamental difference between searchers and solvers is that searchers extract value from user transactions while solvers add value to them.

MEV may be a profitable enterprise in the short-term, but it hurts users and makes for a more toxic ecosystem. This turns potential new entrants away, feeding a vicious cycle — after all if there are no users left, who will searchers make money off of?

Solvers are the opposite: they take the same tech but they leverage it for the benefit of users. This cycle is virtuous, rather than toxic. Users achieve better prices, so they’re incentivized to use the product more, which means more order flow and better compensation for solvers.

From a technical standpoint, the methods searchers use to find arbitrage opportunities can be used to instead find solutions to batches. Searchers can leverage their existing nodes, algorithms, servers, AMM-indexed liquidity, simulation services, and more to become a good solver. This means that the lift to turn a searcher into a solver is relatively minor, while the upside is significant.

## Who can be a Solver?

CoW Protocol was the first DEX to implement intent-based trading, a model that the entire DeFi industry is now moving towards. This means that  [opportunities for solvers](https://dune.com/cowprotocol/solver-info)  will only grow in the coming years.

Thanks to a permissionless structure, anyone can become a solver. The main requirement is to put up a bond which serves as a guarantee that the solver will follow the  [rules](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/reference/core/auctions/competition-rules)  or risk getting slashed.

Solvers that do well find good solutions to the  [batch auction problem](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/reference/core/auctions/the-problem). They also generally:

-   Develop an efficient optimization algorithm
-   Identify and solve special problem instances that are easy to solve
-   Consider diverse liquidity sources
-   Integrate external market makers

## How to Become a Solver

Transforming a searcher setup into a solver setup or writing a new solver takes some technical expertise. We won’t go into it in this article, but you can find the requirements and specifications for becoming a solver in the  [CoW Protocol solver documentation](https://docs.cow.fi/cow-protocol/tutorials/solvers).

We also answer questions and provide technical support through the CoW Protocol  [Discord](https://discord.gg/cowprotocol).

Happy solving!

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Searchers make Ethereum worse for everyone, but with just a few tweaks they could contribute to the ecosystem instead
