1inch has introduced Aqua, a shared-liquidity protocol meant to fix one of DeFi’s biggest pain points: fragmented capital and underused liquidity. The project is now in early-access mode for developers, with a public launch planned for Q1 2026.

Aqua’s shared-liquidity model aims to unlock capital in DeFi

Aqua allows multiple yield-generating strategies to operate simultaneously from a single wallet while maintaining self-custody. According to 1inch, the goal is to move DeFi away from “locked value” and toward “unlocked value,” giving users the ability to reuse the same funds across strategies instead of splitting them into isolated pools.

The traditional DeFi design relies on siloed liquidity pools that force users to commit assets separately for each strategy, which creates inefficiencies and shallow market depth. Aqua challenges this model by proposing a reusable-liquidity layer that lets multiple strategies draw from the same capital base without sacrificing control, shifting the focus from TVL (Total Value Locked) to TVU (Total Value Unlocked).

Aqua’s efficiency hinges on atomic swaps—operations executed as a single, indivisible transaction. These swaps use and return liquidity instantly, enabling the same tokens to fund market making, yields and other techniques at the same time, without requiring multiple deposits or introducing inconsistent intermediate states.

The protocol is deployed as a base layer accompanied by an SDK, libraries and developer documentation. 1inch has opened access on GitHub and launched a community bounty program to audit and strengthen the system ahead of the public front-end. The design aims to minimize friction between using and releasing liquidity, which theoretically boosts market depth and resilience.

For small teams, this model may reduce the need to attract exclusive liquidity pools, lowering barriers for quoting and executing more advanced orders. 1inch, founded in 2019 by Sergej Kunz and Anton Bukov, leverages its background in aggregation to power this new module. Its governance token, 1INCH, continues to serve roles in utility and DAO decision-making. As Kunz put it, “Aqua isn’t just another protocol — it’s a foundation for scalable and capital-efficient DeFi.”

Still, capital reuse brings operational considerations. While it can increase throughput and depth without raising TVL, it also demands rigorous coordination, strong rollback mechanisms and execution integrity to ensure shared liquidity remains safe and synchronized even with L1 publication delays.

Aqua marks a push toward a shared-liquidity architecture that could make DeFi more efficient and accessible. The next major milestone is the release of the public front-end in Q1 2026, following developer testing and community audits.