How Odos Became DeFi’s Power Engine

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Victoria d’Este

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March 30, 2025 at 10:24 am

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In a DeFi world more and more outlined by complexity and fragmentation, Odos has carved out a novel position as a strong execution layer designed to make decentralized buying and selling smarter, quicker, and extra seamless. Odos is tackling one of many greatest challenges within the DeFi house—delivering the absolute best commerce outcomes in a extremely fragmented and sophisticated surroundings—by specializing in two key areas: routing optimization and deep, cross-chain liquidity entry.

Main that effort is Ahmet Ozcan, Co-founder and CEO of Odos. On this interview, he shares how the platform got here to life, what units its expertise aside, and why the way forward for DeFi might depend upon invisible infrastructure, agent-based methods, and a wiser method to on-chain execution.

Are you able to share your journey to Web3? 

I truly got here to crypto and Web3 a bit late. I used to be working at IBM for a very long time, most lately managing an AI crew. So I used to be already deep into AI when it began to get sizzling once more. Round 2020, I personally bought into crypto.

After I stop IBM and began my firm, I wished to work on the intersection of AI and crypto. The opposite founders additionally had related backgrounds, so it was an amazing match. However the true turning level got here after I met the founders of The Graph Protocol. We began working with them and doing a little tasks.

Then 2021 got here—DeFi summer season occurred—and that actually caught my consideration. I used to be pissed off with the expertise, particularly on decentralized exchanges. The fragmentation was annoying. Like many founders, I used to be pushed by frustration and a want to resolve an actual drawback.

With my background in physics, optimization has at all times been necessary to me. So, I began specializing in decentralized finance and routing optimization to handle the fragmentation difficulty. My journey into Web3 was a bit later than others, however I believe my business background brings a distinct perspective.

May you stroll us by means of how the Odos routing algorithm works? What makes it distinctive?

Think about DeFi as a map, the place tokens are cities and swaps are roads connecting them. To get out of your enter token to the one you truly need, you usually must move by means of just a few cities or tokens.

Odos seems to be in any respect attainable routes throughout all of the DEXs and swimming pools we assist and identifies probably the most environment friendly path from begin to end. We begin by pulling in an enormous variety of swap choices; then, we start filtering out those that don’t make sense—possibly they require further tokens or have excessive fuel charges. By means of this iterative elimination, we slender down the choices till we discover the neatest, most optimum route on your tokens.

What makes Odos totally different is that we don’t simply sew collectively particular person paths one after the other. We run a full optimization over all the graph of attainable swaps and token mixtures. That enables us to persistently discover higher mixtures and ship higher costs to customers.

Proper now, we’re additionally constructing a machine studying layer on prime of all the things to be taught from previous trades, make smarter choices quicker, and adapt to altering market situations in real-time. So, the system will get higher and higher over time.

For those who may immediately increase one a part of the DeFi ecosystem 10x to learn Odos, what wouldn’t it be?

I’d 10x the adoption of agentic methods—agent-based DeFi and intent-driven interfaces. As we transfer away from the click-based DeFi interfaces we use at this time, customers will more and more depend on autonomous brokers to behave on their behalf.

As an alternative of manually executing each swap, customers will simply specific intents like “get me one of the best worth” or “rebalance my portfolio.” This may enhance person expertise and cut back safety dangers. Brokers can function 24/7 and do rather more than an individual attempting to navigate all the things manually.

So a flourishing agent ecosystem would actually drive demand for precisely the type of infrastructure we’re constructing at Odos.

How does Odos assess and reply to the challenges of liquidity fragmentation throughout chains and DEXs, particularly with the rise of Layer 2s, appchains, and non-EVM environments?

Liquidity fragmentation has at all times been a problem, nevertheless it’s getting worse with the rise of Layer 2s and appchains. Proper now, we’re fixing fragmentation inside particular person chains—aggregating as many DEXs and swimming pools as attainable to present customers one of the best execution. However we’re additionally designing for the long run.

We envision a future the place customers—and particularly agent-based methods—don’t care what chain they’re on. They only need one of the best consequence. So we’re actively making ready for a world the place Odos can function an execution engine throughout environments, dealing with cross-chain intents, messaging protocols, and even permissioned liquidity when wanted.

We don’t consider in continually shifting liquidity to new chains—that’s inefficient. For instance, take a look at what the OP Superchain is doing to resolve interoperability inside its ecosystem. That’s an amazing place to begin.

As for deciding which chains to assist, we fastidiously monitor the place liquidity and customers are migrating. Not each chain is price integrating immediately. We contemplate person demand, sustainability, whole worth locked, and the way energetic the ecosystem is. We wish to meet customers the place they’re with out spreading ourselves too skinny.

In what methods does Odos contribute to the general effectivity and worth discovery in decentralized markets? Do you suppose DEX aggregators are under-recognized for his or her impression?

Sure, completely—they’re under-recognized. DEX aggregators like Odos play a vital position in making DeFi markets extra environment friendly. By routing orders throughout fragmented liquidity, we cut back spreads, unify pricing, and make arbitrage more durable to use.

We assist be sure that liquidity is used the place it’s wanted most, which improves the person expertise—even for these in a roundabout way utilizing Odos. We act as invisible infrastructure, coordinating movement behind the scenes. Many individuals don’t notice it’s not only a assortment of DEXs—it’s the underlying infrastructure that actually powers DeFi.

How do you identify which protocols and chains to combine with? What requirements should they meet?

We get this query quite a bit from new protocols and chains. We take a look at a mixture of liquidity depth, person demand, technical maturity, and safety. Our north star is at all times person execution high quality—does this integration meaningfully enhance it?

We additionally take a look at composability and the way secure the protocol is, how simple it’s to observe and preserve, and whether or not there’s actual financial exercise—not simply farming after which abandonment. We attempt to steadiness exercise and safety, that are the 2 most necessary elements.

Odos has been built-in with a number of main protocols. What defines a priceless or strategic partnership for you?

We outline strategic partnerships by three key issues: significant liquidity, infrastructure innovation, and shared distribution. A very good associate both brings property and swimming pools our customers want, provides infrastructure like bridges or intent layers that improve our routing, or helps lengthen our attain to extra customers.

We additionally worth philosophical alignment—companions who consider in abstraction, composability, and decreasing person friction. Strategic worth goes each methods: the protocols we combine into and the platforms that combine us—like wallets, dashboards, meta-aggregators, and brokers. These companions use Odos as a backend engine to ship one of the best trades, which extends our execution flywheel and strengthens the ecosystem.

As DeFi begins intersecting with AI-driven brokers, modular execution, and RWAs, how does Odos plan to remain related and responsive?

We’re already positioning Odos because the execution spine for this subsequent part of DeFi. On the agent aspect, Odos is already getting used behind the scenes by early intent-based methods. We’re designing interfaces for goal-oriented execution so brokers can request actions like rebalancing or liquidating with out micromanaging each step.

On the modular execution entrance, we’re making Odos composable so it could possibly plug into numerous environments—whether or not it’s rollups, shared sequencing, or programmable automation layers.

As for RWAs (real-world property), the chance is large. These property nonetheless want environment friendly, safe on-chain execution—particularly within the early phases. Whether or not it’s tokenized treasuries or actual property, Odos can guarantee environment friendly transaction routing.

May Odos evolve into one thing past a DEX aggregator—possibly a broader execution layer for on-chain finance?

I truly don’t like calling Odos an aggregator, because it suggests we simply gather liquidity. However we consider it extra as an agentic navigation layer for on-chain finance.

As DeFi shifts towards intent-based and agentic methods, we want infrastructure that may translate high-level targets into optimized on-chain execution. Excessive-level brokers like LLMs are nice for planning, however they’ll’t handle DeFi’s real-time dynamics. That’s the place Odos is available in—we’re constructing for precisely that future.

What are probably the most underappreciated technological or structural developments in DeFi at this time that Odos is making ready for?

One is RWAs and the necessity for permissioned execution. Many companions require KYC/AML-compliant entry to permissioned liquidity swimming pools. We’re designing Odos to assist these necessities whereas nonetheless delivering robust execution so institutional customers can keep on-chain somewhat than shifting to centralized exchanges or walled gardens.

The second underappreciated development is agentic methods. Many individuals nonetheless consider them as easy bots. Nevertheless, as somebody with an AI background, I see how multi-agent methods are already altering issues outdoors Web3. As soon as AI specialists begin constructing in crypto, how folks work together with DeFi shall be a game-changer.

What would a very optimum decentralized buying and selling expertise appear to be? What are the remaining obstacles?

It ought to really feel like magic. Customers specific what they need—the system handles the remainder. Our purpose is to turn into invisible.

It ought to be chain-agnostic, trust-minimized, and environment friendly. However threat administration and person expertise are nonetheless the largest hurdles. Individuals nonetheless belief centralized exchanges extra, particularly in some nations. They battle with wallets, sensible contract dangers, MEV.

However brokers don’t care about belief—they function programmatically. Agentic execution may also help take away these psychological obstacles and produce us nearer to a very decentralized expertise.

Are you able to please share the roadmap for Odos?

We revealed our roadmap at first of the 12 months. This 12 months, we’re targeted on cross-chain capabilities—not simply bridging however seamless experiences for DeFi customers. We’re additionally shifting past EVM chains, with Solana on the prime of the checklist.

Longer-term—and even inside this 12 months—we’re making ready for RWAs, working with institutional customers, and understanding what agentic methods actually need. We’re having fascinating conversations with these companions, and we’re excited to launch new options subsequent 12 months primarily based on what we’re studying.

About The Writer

Victoria is a author on a wide range of expertise subjects together with Web3.0, AI and cryptocurrencies. Her in depth expertise permits her to write down insightful articles for the broader viewers.

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Victoria d’Este