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Faraday FM · October 4 · 19 min

Swapping in the Open: A Privacy and Security Guide to Decentralised Exchanges

Decentralised exchanges let you trade crypto without handing your money to a company. But "no sign-up" doesn't mean private. Every swap on a public blockchain is permanent and visible, and the websites and infrastructure you connect through can see more than you might think. Bots can also read your trades before they happen and profit from them. In this episode, Aengus starts with the story of Uniswap: from a 2016 idea by Vitalik Buterin to a laid-off engineer's learning project that became the world's largest DEX. He explains how automated market makers actually work, then looks at MEV and sandwich attacks, and why your trading intentions are a privacy problem as well as a money problem. From there, he explores the newer generation of DEXes: CoW Swap and its batch auctions. Curve, 1inch, UniswapX, Jupiter, Hyperliquid and THORChain. Privacy-focused designs like Railgun and Penumbra. He also covers the legal backdrop around privacy tools, including the Tornado Cash cases. The episode ends with practical tips for using DEXes more privately and more safely. These include separating wallets, protecting your network connection and RPC, avoiding MEV, managing token approvals, spotting fake websites and tokens, and keeping your seed phrase secure. This episode is for educational purposes only and is not financial or legal advice. Rules on crypto and privacy tools vary by country. AI disclosure: This episode's script was researched and written with the help of AI. Facts were checked against public sources at the time of production, but crypto moves fast, so please verify anything important before acting on it. https://x.com/AengusWiz

0:00-19:05
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show notes

Decentralised exchanges let you trade crypto without handing your money to a company. But "no sign-up" doesn't mean private. Every swap on a public blockchain is permanent and visible, and the websites and infrastructure you connect through can see more than you might think. Bots can also read your trades before they happen and profit from them.

In this episode, Aengus starts with the story of Uniswap: from a 2016 idea by Vitalik Buterin to a laid-off engineer's learning project that became the world's largest DEX. He explains how automated market makers actually work, then looks at MEV and sandwich attacks, and why your trading intentions are a privacy problem as well as a money problem.

From there, he explores the newer generation of DEXes:

  • CoW Swap and its batch auctions.
  • Curve, 1inch, UniswapX, Jupiter, Hyperliquid and THORChain.
  • Privacy-focused designs like Railgun and Penumbra.

He also covers the legal backdrop around privacy tools, including the Tornado Cash cases.

The episode ends with practical tips for using DEXes more privately and more safely. These include separating wallets, protecting your network connection and RPC, avoiding MEV, managing token approvals, spotting fake websites and tokens, and keeping your seed phrase secure.

This episode is for educational purposes only and is not financial or legal advice. Rules on crypto and privacy tools vary by country.

AI disclosure: This episode's script was researched and written with the help of AI. Facts were checked against public sources at the time of production, but crypto moves fast, so please verify anything important before acting on it.


https://x.com/AengusWiz

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