Been doing a lot of cross-chain swaps lately (BTC to ETH, XMR to BTC, etc.) and got tired of manually checking rates across different protocols every time. Wanted to share what I learned in case it’s useful to others here.

The four main non-custodial options right now:

THORChain — Most mature, deepest liquidity for BTC/ETH/major pairs. Fees are usually 0.1-0.3% but can spike on volatile pairs. Occasionally pauses trading for maintenance.

Chainflip — Faster settlement than THORChain in my testing, competitive rates especially for BTC/ETH/SOL. Newer so liquidity is thinner on less common pairs.

NEAR Intents — Intent-based architecture, surprised me with good rates on XRP and stablecoin pairs. Settlement felt fast.

ChangeNOW — Best coverage for long-tail assets (TAO, HYPE, etc.) that the decentralized protocols don’t support yet, but it’s more centralized in nature.

Key takeaway: no single protocol is consistently cheapest. The “best rate” shifts depending on the pair, amount, and time of day. For swaps over $500 I saw rate differences of 1-3% between providers on the same pair, which adds up.

I ended up building a small tool (called TokensFund, you can search for it if curious) that pulls quotes from all four side by side so I don’t have to manually check each one. Mentioning it for transparency since I’m obviously biased, but the comparison data itself is the useful part even if you check rates manually elsewhere.

Curious if others have noticed the same rate variance, or have found other non-custodial protocols worth comparing. Always looking to add more sources.

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