The decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch Network introduced peer-to-peer, or P2P, order functionality within the 1inch decentralized application, or DApp. This feature allows users to specify the person or wallet that will fill the other side of the trade, as opposed to over-the-counter or OTC payments where 1inch matches the order with a taker.

According to the company website, this "opens the door to a whole new world" of possible use cases, including transactions within NFT marketplaces, auctions or reverse auctions. Although other services like Binance Pay or Bybit support P2P payments, the company said that they have "stepped in to fill the gap" in demand for this kind of service.

1inch claimed that their P2P service offers trustless swaps backed by smart contracts and complete decentralization. Users can send orders via email or to any messenger using URLs that bypass 1inch’s backend. Within the Twitter thread, the company specified that participants are able to set the swap amount to the current market rate or to reduce and increase the rate by 5% intervals. Expiration dates can also be set to anytime between 10 minutes and 7 days.

The most common use cases for P2P orders include situations when liquidity for a certain token is not sufficient for a large OTC deal or in the case of tokens in the presale stage. The P2P feature is built on top of the 1inch Limit Order Protocol and is available on the following chains: Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Optimistic Ethereum, Arbitrum and Gnosis Chain.

Related: P2P payments spurred crypto adoption across Venezuela in 2021

Recently, Cointelegraph interviewed Anton Bukov, the co-founder of 1inch Network, who said that he believes that Ethereum will likely become the main settlement layer for a multi-chain ecosystem.