Introduction

Widgets are a part of the Graphical User Interface (GUI), used for displaying information or providing tools, allowing users to interact with applications or systems. In Web3 websites, we often see pop-up windows that offer token swap services with a single click. This is the primary use of swap widgets in Web3.

Why are swap widgets a battleground for many DEXs, aggregators, and even cross-chain bridge projects? As the on-chain ecosystem and tokens become more abundant, embedding a function to exchange tokens directly on the official website is indispensable for user convenience.

Providing a user-friendly and easy-to-deploy widget for other projects to embed, thereby increasing market share and earning swap fees, is a profitable business. This has led many projects to launch their own widgets.

This article will present a pain point analysis of the swap widget market in the Web3 ecosystem. It will analyze the market potential of swap widgets, compare the strengths and weaknesses of existing widget products, and finally introduce the unique value of the DODO Swap Widget.

1. The Dull Market Poses a Challenge to Monetization

Value Loss Under Drying Up Traffic
Survival Challenge of Cryptocurrency Tool Websites
Monetization Dilemmas for KOLs

2. Widgets: Dual Winners in Cost-Effectiveness and Security

Cost-Effectiveness: Widgets Significantly Save Development and Maintenance Costs
Security: Widgets Ensure Safe Transactions

3. DODO Swap Widget: A Powerful Widget Experience

Competitive Comparison: DODO Swap Widget is the Unmatched Choice
DODO Swap Widget Empowers DAO Maker: Realizing One-Stop Token Transactions
Significant Growth of DAO Maker
Case Summary of DAO Maker

4. Conclusion & References

Chapter 1: The Dull Market Poses a Challenge to Monetization

1.1 Value Loss Under Drying Up Traffic

Uniswap: "0.15% interface fee, because... why not?” —— @Pancakeswap

Since 2022, as BTC fell from its peak, the market's enthusiasm has cooled down. The decline in coin prices is the most direct manifestation, and the market's favor for cryptocurrencies has gradually faded. Google Trend search results show that the popularity of the "crypto" topic in Google web searches has been cooling since the beginning of 2022. Reduced industry traffic poses a challenge to revenue for projects relying on transaction fees or advertising income. Decreased traffic means less advertising revenue, and the quiet market directly challenges the project's monetization capabilities.

Source: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2022-01-01 2023-10-23&q=Crypto&hl=zh-CN

On October 17, Uniswap announced a 0.15% interface fee for swaps on its frontend. There is no fee for aggregators, other UIs, or direct interactions with smart contracts. This reflects the current market situation: in today's traffic crisis, there's an urgent need for frontend profit-sharing to ensure income. This method of directly converting traffic into profit is efficient and direct. While ensuring the decentralization of the protocol, it provides a shortcut for converting user traffic into cash flow.

Despite criticism from the crypto community, data shows that Uniswap's frontend fee has indeed brought significant cash flow. About a month since charging fees, the income has already exceeded 1 million USD, a substantial amount for the team.

Source: https://dune.com/kroeger0x/uniswap-labs-fees

1.2 Survival Challenge of Cryptocurrency Tool Websites

In the cryptocurrency field, line charts and chip analysis tools are very important, helping investors and analysts understand market dynamics and make wiser decisions. For instance, the leading line chart websites Dexscreener and Dextools have nearly 10M monthly visits, while the top DEXs (Uniswap & Pancake) have only about half to a third of that traffic.

However, these websites, despite providing high-quality services, rely on financing, community donations, or advertising for operational funds. Apart from line chart websites, there are also on-chain analysis asset management websites like Debank, which also have impressive frontend traffic with 6M visits last month, surpassing two major DEXs. Without issuing tokens, if these websites could benefit from the reward-sharing mechanism of widgets, it would greatly supplement their income.

These tool websites, especially line chart websites, are almost a must-have for trading widgets, but they do not receive corresponding income from their traffic. Providing high-quality services and receiving relative compensation is quite reasonable. Therefore, if these tool websites embed widgets with a reward-sharing mechanism, it would undoubtedly help their operational cash flow.

Monthly visit data for line graph websites, header DEX, and asset management websites. Source: https://pro.similarweb.com/#/digitalsuite/websiteanalysis/overview/website-performance/

1.3 Monetization Dilemmas for KOLs

KOL is an acronym for Key Opinion Leader, often referring to a group of people with significant influence and a fan base on various platforms (such as Twitter, Coin, Weibo, etc.). In Web3, KOLs might spend several hours writing a hardcore tweet. This includes studying complex technical details, accurately researching and verifying data and information, multiple rounds of editing and revising for accuracy, clarity, and attractiveness, and considering how to interact with readers and effectively spread on social media. Accumulating a certain number of followers requires continuous output for half a year, a year, or even longer.

After attracting considerable attention, KOLs need to monetize their traffic to recoup the costs of their activities (including content creation) and convert traffic into economic benefits. Market recognition and rewards also incentivize KOLs to continuously improve and create high-quality value content. Through effective monetization strategies, KOLs can transform their influence into long-term brand assets.

Common monetization methods include: tipping, paid knowledge, commercial promotion, commission links, Socialfi, etc. While these methods bring income to KOLs, they each face their own challenges:

Tipping income depends on the spontaneous behavior of fans, which is unstable and fluctuates greatly. Over-reliance on tips may pressure fans, making them feel they need to financially support the KOL, which can affect their loyalty and satisfaction. This can be detrimental to the KOL's reputation and unfavorable for long-term sustainable development.
Paid knowledge (such as premium information sharing, online courses) means KOLs provide specialized content, and users pay a certain fee for access, usually charged as quarterly or annual subscription fees. This form often faces content quality pressure; KOLs need to continually provide high-quality, valuable content to attract and retain paying users. At the same time, as more people enter the paid knowledge field, the market is becoming saturated and flattened, and competitive pressure is a new challenge.
Commercial promotion usually refers to KOLs collaborating with project parties or brands to promote products or services, with KOLs earning about 100 - 500 U per Twitter ad. However, commercial promotion often comes with content restrictions, and cooperation with specific brands may limit KOLs' creative freedom, requiring them to compromise on content. Frequent commercial promotions may damage the KOL's personal brand, making fans feel the content is overly commercialized, reducing fan stickiness. Even online, the bad reputation of "400u KOLs" can make users resist and feel disgusted.
Commission links involve promoting centralized exchanges to get commissions from new registered users. This method has low conversion efficiency, as a user typically only has one account at the same exchange, and the market competition is intense. Also, not all users need centralized exchanges.
SocialFi is an emerging way for KOLs to monetize: recently popular are Friend.tech, which takes a fee when trading chat room permissions; Tipcoin, where highly interactive tweets with #tip or $tip can win airdrop points; Time Store, allowing anyone (Always KOLs) to issue their social currency representing the value of their personal time, etc.

The main advantage of SocialFi is that it addresses the economic interest monopoly problem of traditional social media platforms for content creators. On traditional platforms, content creators usually only get limited economic benefits, while most of the profits are swallowed by the platform. In contrast, SocialFi can maximize individual value. However, on-chain social is still a relatively low-frequency field, often focused on pursuing profits. If the model is poorly designed, this may lead to the platform being flooded with a large amount of junk information, paid knowledge leakage, causing user loss. In addition, current SocialFi platforms are not as functional as mature platforms such as Telegram or Discord groups. Even issuing fan tokens (Token/Key) may pose compliance risks for KOL users, as they could be considered unregistered securities by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Chapter 2: Widgets: Dual Winners in Cost-Effectiveness and Security

2.1 Cost-Effectiveness: Widgets Significantly Save Development and Maintenance Costs

Cost Comparison for Development:
- Self-Development: Developing a trading function usually involves multiple stages, including design, programming, testing, and deployment. Each stage requires labor and time, and the cost of professional blockchain developers is relatively high. For example, developing a DEX functionality from scratch may take 3 months, requiring at least two full-time developers. Assuming a monthly salary of $10,000 per developer, the total cost would be at least $60,000, not including additional testing and maintenance expenses.
- Using Widgets: In contrast, projects with development capabilities can efficiently utilize the DODO Developer Platform and its comprehensive documentation, usually completing interface integration within a day, with only minimal development work to ensure compatibility with existing systems. This means a significant reduction in costs, possibly requiring only $5,000 to $10,000 for integration and testing fees.
Maintenance and Updates:
- Self-Maintenance: Continuously maintaining and updating self-developed trading functionalities, especially in the fast-evolving blockchain technology environment, requires regular development work. For example, each quarter might require an expenditure of $5,000 to $10,000 for updates and bug fixes.
- Using Widgets: Choosing professionally developed and continuously maintained widgets can significantly reduce these expenses. The maintenance of the widget is undertaken by the original development team, and the project only needs to focus on updates to the integration part, potentially reducing maintenance costs to $1,000 or less per quarter.

2.2 Security: Widgets Ensure Safe Transactions

Security Audits:
- Independent Security Audits: For self-developed DEX functionalities, comprehensive code audits are needed to ensure security. This typically includes code reviews, security vulnerability detection, stress testing, etc. Professional blockchain security audit companies may charge considerable fees. For example, a comprehensive audit might cost from $15,000 to $30,000, depending on the complexity of the code and the depth of the audit. The audit process may take weeks to months. For complex systems, a full audit might require 2-3 months.
- Transparency: The DODO Swap Widget uses the DODOFeeRouteProxy contract for routing services, which has undergone a comprehensive security audit by the Sherlock security company. The audit report found no significant security vulnerabilities, proving its safety. The detailed audit report can be viewed at this link.
Historical Security Record:
- Flawless History: Since the launch of the DODO platform, we have maintained a good security record. In the past three years, whether it's the platform itself or related components, there have been no security incidents, demonstrating a history free of vulnerabilities.
- Ongoing Security Updates: Committed to rapid response and updates for any potential security issues discovered.

Chapter 3: DODO Swap Widget: A Powerful Widget Experience

For project parties, integrating the DODO Swap Widget enables users to swap any token at the best price without leaving the dApp. Integration can be completed in just one minute, easily embedding into applications and websites, allowing users quick access to key functionalities, helping to attract and retain users. The benefits of integrating the DODO widget into a project include but are not limited to:

Front-end Profit Sharing, by adding your platform fees to the transaction, turning Swap into a source of revenue;
Quality Trading Experience, offering your users the best prices and fastest routes across 13 chains;
Cross-chain Trading, integrating user assets across different chains, increasing platform transaction rates;
Custom Front-end, including appearance, token list, and other comprehensive custom services;
Customized Analysis, tailored for project party's business logic, providing customized design for DODO Swap Widget functionalities.

For KOLs, the DODO Referral Link can help enhance income, attract and retain users, promote token circulation, and offer a satisfying user experience with a convenient tool. The DODO Referral Link allows KOLs to directly recommend a list of tokens to their followers via a link and collect a custom transaction fee commission. Broadening KOL monetization channels while having the following advantages:

Direct Earnings: KOLs can directly earn income from each transaction, an efficient mode of revenue.
Simplified Operation Process: Direct access to the recommended token list via the link simplifies the operation process, reducing the decision burden for followers. This simplification can decrease "analysis paralysis," the phenomenon where an individual's decision-making ability is reduced when faced with too many choices or complex information, potentially increasing the frequency and volume of transactions.
Follower Stickiness: If followers trust KOL's professional judgment and recommendations, this model can strengthen their trust and loyalty towards the KOL. Successful investment recommendations can enhance the KOL's authority and influence, incentivizing and reinforcing their monetization. By following KOL's investment recommendations, followers, to some extent, are expressing identification with the KOL's identity and values. Social identity theory suggests that people tend to imitate the behavior of group members they identify with, thus encouraging followers to emulate their investment decisions.
Flexibility: Custom commission rates provide flexibility, allowing KOLs to adjust the rates based on their understanding of different follower groups, matching their willingness to pay, thereby maximizing revenue. Strong influence and high demand from followers may allow for higher commission rates without significantly reducing demand. Based on psychological factors such as a sense of fairness, perceived value, etc., it also facilitates optimization of pricing strategies.

With a simple registration, you can easily customize the DODO Swap Widget. The trading configuration includes: support for cross-chain transactions, widget naming, default transaction slippage, and a selectable list of tokens.

Appearance configuration includes: size, colors of various parts, color of the text; you can also directly choose from several default configurations at the top right corner.

Finally, KOLs can personally configure the commission: including the commission address, commission percentage, RPC nodes, and an exclusive community access link.

Once set up, users opening the link will automatically specify certain token pairs for transactions, generating income directly from the transactions linked, not limited to commissions from centralized exchanges. Any token with liquidity on the chain can be promoted.

3.1 Competitive Comparison: DODO Swap Widget is the Unmatched Choice

After comparing 11 products currently offering Swap Widgets in the market, we found that each has its strengths and weaknesses. We have outlined 7 criteria for evaluation:

Rapid Deployment (Documentation Completeness) - The existence of widgets is to reduce the workload for project parties. They should be quickly deployable by embedding the code in the web frontend, so the completeness of documentation and supported frontend frameworks are crucial.
Customization - This criterion is based on the number of parameters that the project party can customize. The more adjustable parameters, the greater the freedom of play.
Revenue Sharing - Refers to whether the project parties using the Widget can receive corresponding rewards. Some Widgets already support revenue sharing mechanisms that reward a portion of the transaction amount to the embedded frontend project party.
Aggregated Routing - Most Widgets launched by aggregators or cross-chain bridges have this feature, aggregating multiple pools to offer the best quote.
Multi-Chain Support - Multi-chain support has become a standard in today's blockchain field. Therefore, having multi-chain support only meets the minimum standard, while those that don't support it are mostly single-chain DEXs.
Cross-Chain Swap - Although most Widgets support multi-chains, most do not provide direct cross-chain exchange, which would allow assets from Chain A to be directly swaped to Chain B.
Referral LINK - A unique feature introduced by DODO, allowing not only project parties but also any traffic holder, whether KOLs or various projects, to be target users.

Based on these seven criteria, let's analyze the differences in strengths and weaknesses of each Widget:

Uniswap: The famous Uniswap, with its brand reputation and advantage as the underlying liquidity pool, has gained support from many project parties. Its Widget product is standard in functionality, possessing necessary document details, customizable frontend parameters, and multi-chain support.
OpenOcean: As an aggregator project, OpenOcean certainly has aggregated routing and multi-chain support. Customization offers a frontend click-and-preview feature, facilitating configuration for users, but the only downside is the lack of detailed documentation and limited support for frontend frameworks.
KyberSwap: Also an aggregator protocol's widget, Kyber boasts aggregated routing and multi-chain support. Kyber excels in documentation details, covering everything necessary, and the reason for its high score in customization is that it allows settings not only for the frontend interface but also for specific routing.
VoltiChange: Designed for niche projects, VoltiChange offers a simple and convenient setup with a frontend click-and-preview feature. However, customization is limited to just dark and light modes, and multi-chain support is only for BSC/ETH, somewhat simplistic compared to other products.
SyncSwap: A multi-chain DEX project, SyncSwap only supports its own liquidity pools for routing. Combined with scant documentation and support for only one frontend framework, its overall score is not high.
Orion Protocol: Notable for aggregating liquidity from both on-chain DEXs and off-chain exchanges, Orion Protocol's documentation is sparse, requiring contact with the team for further information, thus receiving a lower score.
XY Swap: A cross-chain bridge project, XY Swap has detailed documentation and supports a wide range of front-end frameworks. Its only minor flaw is the lack of a profit-sharing feature.
Mayan Swap: Also a cross-chain bridge project, Mayan Swap stands out for supporting not only EVM-compatible chains but also Solana. Its functionality and documentation are quite comprehensive, though it supports fewer front-end frameworks.
LiquidSwap: A DEX project on the Aptos blockchain, LiquidSwap has relatively complete documentation. However, as it does not offer cross-chain capabilities, it lacks support for aggregate routing, multi-chain support, and cross-chain swap.
Swing: Swing's strength lies in its very detailed documentation and comprehensive support for frameworks. Its only downside is also the absence of a profit-sharing feature.
Li.Fi: Another cross-chain bridge project, Li.Fi, is similar to XY Swap in that it has comprehensive documentation and functionality, leaving little room for criticism.
DODO: DODO can be said to stand on the shoulders of giants, drawing on research from many of the aforementioned projects, thus being able to adopt their strengths and avoid aspects deemed less favorable. Additionally, DODO introduced the unique KOL Referral Link feature, elevating the target audience for Widgets from project parties to a higher dimension, targeting any entity with traffic, whether KOLs or various projects.

Source: DODO Research

3.2 DODO Swap Widget Empowers DAO Maker: Realizing One-Stop Token Transactions

DAO Maker is an industry-leading Crypto project, recognized as one of the most popular and user-rich Launchpads. They are more than just a platform; they are an incubator and accelerator for crypto projects, focusing on helping startups and emerging projects achieve their grand objectives.

Since its inception, DAO Maker has accumulated rich experience and a broad user base, including some of the most well-known projects in the industry. They have not only helped these projects secure funding but also provided significant support in project promotion and user acquisition. Their collaboration with a variety of projects has earned them considerable influence in the Crypto community.

Despite DAO Maker's significant success, they have been continuously seeking new methods and tools to further enhance their product experience and increase protocol revenue. Therefore, they decided to integrate the DODO Swap Widget to implement more efficient and convenient token trading functionalities and earn transaction fee revenue from user trades.

3.3 Significant Growth of DAO Maker

DAO Maker officially integrated the DODO Swap Widget on May 16, 2023. In the cumulative 30 days, the DODO Swap Widget helped DAO Maker achieve a trading volume of $2,529,645 with 8,013 transactions. DAO Maker averaged a daily trading volume of $84,321, approximately $2.5M per month. Here are the specific data:

Resource: DODO

DAO Maker averaged over 250 transactions per day, peaking at over 900 transactions in a single day, achieving 8,000 transactions per month.

Resource: DODO

The DODO Swap Widget reduced user redirection, enhancing user experience and increasing user visit duration for DAO Maker. Each user's average stay on the trading page was about 30s-1min. Calculating at 30s per transaction, we added over 4,000 minutes of user visit duration for DAO Maker in 30 days.

Resource: DODO

Compiling these data into a table, we can see the tangible benefits: the DODO Swap Widget not only improved DAO Maker's operational efficiency but also brought substantial economic gains. Starting from 2023, DAO Maker's profits increased from $0 in the first quarter to an accumulated $5,328.38 by the fourth quarter.

Source: DODO Research

These data not only highlight the functionality and benefits of the DODO Swap Widget but also demonstrate how DODO's product has helped DAO Maker improve efficiency and increase revenue. For any organization looking to grow its business through increased efficiency and revenue, the DODO Swap Widget is an ideal choice.

DAO Maker's integration page display:

3.4 Case Summary of DAO Maker

By integrating the DODO Swap Widget, DAO Maker quickly implemented trading functionality without the need for separate development, making it convenient and quick.
DAO Maker users can now perform token transactions in a one-stop manner on DAO Maker, without leaving the DAO Maker website, enhancing user experience.
In the initial 30 days, the DODO Swap Widget helped DAO Maker achieve a trading volume of $2,529,645 with 8,013 transactions.
Through transaction fee sharing, DAO Maker's estimated monthly revenue can reach about $3,000.

Chapter 4: Conclusion

In a market where traffic is drying up, revenue itself has become a challenge, making the monetization of precious traffic a challenge for project parties. For tool-type websites, most of which do not have their own tokens but have booming traffic, integrating DEX functionalities through widgets and gaining cash flow income through profit sharing could be a significant boost to revenue. Utilizing pre-developed and tested widgets also has the advantage of cost-effectiveness and security. While saving substantially in terms of development costs and time, audited and continuously updated widgets ensure fund security.

DODO Swap Widget stands out in a horizontal comparison with competitors, offering users a comprehensive and powerful experience. Not only does it have strong advantages in rapid deployment, customization, aggregate routing, and multi-chain support, but its Referral LINK also brings a new paradigm to KOL monetization. Customized UI design easily adapts to the visual style of project parties and KOLs, while customizable transaction fees provide the greatest flexibility for maximizing economic benefits. The case of DAO Maker has already proven the significant increase in user retention and revenue brought by the DODO Swap Widget. Empower your DeFi projects, streamline your development process, and join the ranks of innovative developers shaping the future of decentralized finance with the DODO Developer Portal.