For traders used to centralized exchanges, DeFi can feel uncomfortably limiting (pun intended). You just take whatever price a DEX gives you. You cannot set a limit order. In fact, usually, there are no orders at all.
Luckily, there is Matcha. It brings you the best price from across 100+ liquidity sources and lets you use limit orders. In this tutorial, we’ll show how to use limit orders to buy or sell at a price you want.
What is Matcha.xyz?
Founded by 0x in 2020, Matcha is a DEX aggregator that helps you to find the best price from 100+ decentralized exchanges and other liquidity providers such as Aave.
With Matcha, you can trade almost anything: it has indexed over 5 million tokens across 9 chains.
For regular swaps, Matcha works similarly to any DEX or Zerion swaps. Just select the token you want to sell, the token to buy and get the best quote.
On Ethereum or Polygon, you can also turn on Matcha Auto for MEV protection, gasless swaps, and optimal trade execution. In that case, Matcha submits the transaction to the blockchain, covering gas and increasing execution speed. Auto charges a 0.15% fee.
You can also use cross-chain swaps to receive the tokens on a different blockchain.
Besides regular swaps, Matcha offers limit orders.
How limit orders work
Let’s dive into how limit orders work in DeFi.
With regular swaps you just take the market price — like with market orders. Meanwhile, with limit orders you specify the limit price, i.e., the price you want to buy or sell.
If you expect the price to move, you can set limit orders and wait for them to fill. That’s a great way to buy dips even when you sleep. If the limit price isn’t hit, the limit order expires at its expiration date. Or you can cancel it manually at any time.
For limit orders, Matcha uses 0x, which records orders off-chain and connects the buyer and the seller. The limit order is not submitted onchain, which means MEV bots can’t snipe your order.
Once the seller and buyer are matched, the trade is settled onchain.
How to trade with limit orders on Matcha DEX
It’s very easy to create a limit order on Matcha:
- Connect your Zerion wallet
- Go to Matcha and switch to Limit order
- Select the token you want to sell
- Select the token you want to buy
- Select the quantity you want — either how much you’re selling or how much you want to buy
- Select the expiration date for your limit order
- Click ‘Place order’
- Sign the transaction in your Zerion wallet
That’s it! The order is created. You’ll see it in ‘Trade History’ > ‘Open Orders’
The best part is that on Matcha, limit orders are free to create because they are first submitted off-chain to 0x. The buyer pays the settlement fee only once the transaction is submitted onchain.
You can create limit orders with Matcha to be settled on one of 3 chains: Ethereum mainnet, Polygon, and Binance Smart Chain. Set your first limit order today at matcha.xyz!
