DEXs
Course · Web3 · 4 min
What?01 / 08
Trading without a counter
Two streams of tokens cross in the night — no counter stands between them. A market that runs on its own, written in code.
Four minutes to understand this market with no merchant, why to risk it — and how to trade without getting caught out.
↓ Scroll
What?02 / 08
A market with no merchant
A DEX — decentralized exchange — isn't a company: it's a program that lives on the blockchain, a smart contract no one owns alone.
No one holds your funds between two trades: no account to open, no password, no opening hours to respect.
To use it, there's one door: plug in your wallet — the same key that already signs your transactions on the chain.
The contract runs the rule written into its code, the same for everyone, without ever making an exception.
What?03 / 08
The liquidity pool
At the heart of a DEX there's no merchant: there's a pool, filled by depositors who pour in two tokens, always in pairs.
Trading means drawing from one side of the pool and pouring into the other — never one token alone, never without its pair.
The price is written nowhere: it follows the level on both sides, and shifts with every move that unbalances them.
Why?04 / 08
Why use one
Because you keep your keys: the trade happens from your own wallet, your tokens are never deposited into it.
Because it's open to everyone, all the time, with no permission to ask and no form to fill in.
Because everything is verifiable on the chain: the pool, the price, every past trade can be read in plain sight.
Slippage
Fake token
Hidden fees
Trapped contract
Why?05 / 08
Why stay wary
Because the price moves during the trade: between the click and the signature, the pool has already shifted level — that's slippage.
Because a fake token can wear a real name: anyone can create a token and call it whatever they want.
Because a contract's code can carry flaws, and there's no customer service to close them once the trade is signed.
How?06 / 08
How a trade happens
Four steps are enough to make a trade, from the wallet to the signature:
- 01Connection — you plug your wallet into the DEX
- 02Pair — you choose the two tokens to trade
- 03Tolerance — you set the accepted price gap
- 04Signature — you approve, and the pool settles anew
How?07 / 08
The right habits
Four habits are enough to trade without a bad surprise:
- 01Check the token's contract address — not just its name or logo
- 02Start small — a first test trade before committing a larger sum
- 03Set a low tolerance — to refuse a price that has moved too far
- 04Go through official lists — never a link received in a message
Blockchain
Wallet
DEX
How?08 / 08
The rest of the toolkit
Step back: this trade doesn't come from nowhere — it rests on the chain that records it and the wallet that signs it.
The chain lays down the pages, the wallet lays down the key, the DEX lays down the price: three pieces of one mechanism, each useless without the other two.
The RWA you'll meet here will trade the very same way — a pool, a pair, a price that shifts with the level.