What Is Route Splitting?
When you swap a large amount of tokens on a single DEX, you move the price against yourself — this is price impact. Route splitting solves this by breaking your trade into smaller pieces and executing them across multiple DEXs simultaneously.
A DEX aggregator like 1inch or Paraswap analyzes liquidity depth across Uniswap, SushiSwap, Curve, Balancer, and dozens more pools. It computes the optimal split that minimizes your total cost — often routing 60% through one pool, 25% through another, and 15% through a third.
Trade Flow Visualization
Watch how a trade gets split across multiple DEXs. Each flow's width represents the proportion routed through that DEX.
At $50k, most liquidity is available on Uniswap. Minimal splitting needed.
Price Impact: Single DEX vs. Aggregated
Larger trades suffer exponentially worse price impact on a single pool. Splitting across multiple venues keeps each pool's impact small.
Interactive Routing Table
The optimal allocation shifts as trade size changes. This table shows real-time routing decisions based on each DEX's liquidity depth and fee tier.
| DEX | Pool | Fee Tier | Liquidity | Allocation | Amount | Impact |
|---|
Why Splitting Works
Price impact in constant-product AMMs (like Uniswap v2) follows a convex curve — doubling your trade size more than doubles the impact. This mathematical property means splitting always wins for large trades:
- Convexity: Impact(A+B) > Impact(A) + Impact(B). Splitting exploits this inequality
- Independent pools: Each DEX pool has its own reserves. Trading on one doesn't move the price on another
- Fee optimization: Different pools charge different fees (0.01%, 0.05%, 0.3%, 1%). Aggregators route to the cheapest viable path
- Gas tradeoff: More splits = more gas. Aggregators optimize the split count so savings outweigh extra gas costs
Split Threshold Dynamics
Small trades aren't worth splitting — the gas cost of interacting with multiple pools outweighs the savings. As trade size grows, the optimal number of routes increases: