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Overview

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Understanding DEX Transaction Complexity

When a user executes a swap on Ethereum, the transaction often involves multiple layers of intermediaries before reaching the actual liquidity pools. A user might interact with a wallet like Rabby, which routes through LiFi, which in turn uses 1inch, which finally pulls liquidity from Uniswap and Curve pools. Each layer serves a purpose—optimizing routes, aggregating liquidity, or providing user-friendly interfaces. However, this complexity makes it challenging to understand who facilitated the trade and where the actual liquidity came from. This model aims to create a generalized swap flow model to map the flow of a swap execution from its origin through intermediary routing systems like meta-aggregators, aggregators, or solvers, to the decentralized exchanges’ liquidity pools and vaults that settle it. This model helps users understand and explore the flow of DEX transactions through frontends and intermediaries.

• Where trades originate (e.g., wallets, dApps, bot contracts, interfaces)
• How they are routed (via aggregators, meta-aggregators, or intent-based systems)
• Where liquidity is sourced (DEX protocols and pools that ultimately settle the swap)

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Models

Data Schemas

Model: dex.orderflow_liquidity_view (New)The dex.orderflow_liquidity_view model is a flattend view of the dex.unhydrated_orderflow/_v2 model, where all the relevant swap details are compressed within a unit of transaction hash. The entiites (frontend, meta-aggregator, aggregator, solver, pmm) labels are normalized to their respective project names.In this mode, a swap that originates from 1 frontend and is routed to 3 liquidity sources will be represented as 3 rows in the model.

Column	Description
frontend	The originating interface or application through which the user initiated the trade (e.g., MetaMask, Lifi, 1inch).
meta_aggregator	The higher-level routing system that connects multiple aggregators or intent-based systems (e.g., Lifi, Bungee).
aggregator	The protocol responsible for routing swaps across DEXs to optimize execution (e.g., 1inch, Paraswap, Kyberswap).
solver	The intent solver or filler responsible for executing the trade on behalf of a user in intent-based systems (e.g., CoW Protocol solver, Uniswap X filler).
solver_address	The on-chain address of the solver or filler that executed the swap.
pmm	The private market maker (PMM) if the trade involved a off-chain liquidity provider (e.g., Tokenlon, 0x RFQ).
pmm_address	The on-chain address of the private market maker (PMM).
liquidity	The name or identifier of the liquidity source (DEX or pool) involved in the trade. For Uniswap project, the liquidity identifier is resolved to the corresponding version of the pool (e.g., Uniswap V3, Uniswap V4).
liquidity_index	The position or ordering index of the liquidity source within the transaction, if multiple pools are used.
liquidity_pool_address	The contract address of the liquidity pool that facilitated the trade.
pair	The token pair exchanged in the liquidity pool (e.g., WETH-USDC).
project	The DEX or protocol project associated with the liquidity source (e.g., Uniswap, Velodrome, Balancer).
protocol	The specific protocol version or sub-implementation of the project (e.g., Uniswap V3, Curve StableSwap, Velodrome V2).
usd_amount	The USD value of the trade attributed to this liquidity pool.
v4_id	The unique Uniswap V4 hook identifier (if applicable), used for attributing swaps to specific hook contracts.
swap_max_usd_amount	The maximum USD volume among all swap events within the transaction. By proxy, we can take this as the USD volume of the transaction.
swap_total_usd_amount	The total USD volume summed across all swaps in the transaction, both executed by pools (in dex.trades) and routed through intermediaries (in dex.aggregator_trades).
liquidity_details	A structured JSON field containing detailed pool-level trade data (project, protocol, pair, pool address, USD volume, and log index). For v4 Uniswap, the pool id is also included.
transaction_hash	The unique identifier (hash) of the transaction on-chain.
transaction_index	The index of the transaction within the block.
block_timestamp	The timestamp when the block containing the transaction was confirmed.
block_number	The block height in which the transaction was included.
swapper_address	The address of the end user or contract that initiated the swap.
from_address	The originating address from which the transaction was sent.
to_address	The recipient or target contract address to which the transaction was directed.
_created_at	The timestamp when this record was first created in the dataset.
_updated_at	The timestamp when this record was last updated or refreshed.

Model: dex.orderflow (Legacy)

Column Name	Description
frontend	The frontend interface used for the transaction
block_number	The block number in which the transaction was included
block_timestamp	The timestamp of the block in which the transaction was included
transaction_hash	The hash of the transaction
transaction_index	The index of the transaction within the block
swapper_address	The address of the user performing the swap. For most trades, this comes from the transaction_from_address field in dex.trades / dex.aggregator_trades. However, for UniswapX and CowProtocol swaps, it comes from the sender field instead.
from_address	The address initiating the transaction (msg.sender)
to_address	The address receiving the transaction
is_aggregator	Flag indicating if the transaction is an aggregator
usd_volume	The max usd_amount of the swap within the entire transaction
total_usd_volume	The sum of the usd_amount of all swaps within the transaction
senders	Array of addresses sending tokens in the transaction
recipients	Array of addresses receiving tokens in the transaction
tokens_sold	Array of tokens sold in the transaction
integrators	Array of integrator names involved in the transaction
integrator_tags	Array of integrator contract addresses
aggregator_source	Source of the aggregator
aggregator_usd_volume	USD volume of the aggregator portion
aggregators	Array of aggregator contracts involved
aggregators_count	Count of aggregators involved
aggregator_details	JSON details of aggregator swaps
liquidity_source	Array of liquidity sources used
liquidity_usd_volume	USD volume from liquidity sources
liquidity_pools	Array of liquidity pool addresses used
liquidity_pools_count	Count of liquidity pools involved
liquidity_details	JSON details of liquidity pool swaps
total_trades	Total number of trades in the transaction
unique_id	Unique identifier for the transaction

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Methodology

Two core abstractions are used to construct the orderflow schemas: dex.trades and dex.aggregator_trades (Table 2). Table 2: Core abstractions used to construct the orderflow schemas

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The Core Challenge: Attribution in Multi-Layered Transactions

Consider a typical complex swap: A user connects their MetaMask wallet to Jumper Exchange (LiFi’s frontend), which routes through KyberSwap Aggregator, ultimately pulling liquidity from two Uniswap V3 pools and one Curve pool. This single transaction generates multiple swap events across different protocol layers. The fundamental question becomes: How do we attribute this transaction? We sought to identify the following entities involved in a swap:

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Stage 1: Categorizing DEX Protocols

We classify all DEX protocols into different tiers based on their role in the execution mechanism. This classification reflects both the technical complexity of each protocol type and its position in the execution stack. Every swap event, whether from a high-level aggregator or a direct pool interaction, is tagged with its protocol category and assigned the corresponding priority ranking. Table 3: Protocol Classification Hierarchy Priority Rationale:

• Intent-based protocols (rank 1) receive the highest priority because of their fundamentally different execution model. Instead of deterministic routing, they rely on solvers or batch auctions.
• Meta-aggregators (rank 2) are distinguished from standard aggregators because they make routing decisions across multiple aggregation layers.
• Standard aggregators (rank 3) represent the conventional routing layer, whether through traditional aggregation algorithms or request-for-quote systems where professional market makers provide liquidity.
• Direct AMM pool or vault swaps (rank 4) represent the liquidity sources of most DEX swaps, where the underlying tokens are exchanged.

We assign each swap event’s project name (e.g., CoW Protocol) to the corresponding orderflow entity (e.g., Meta-Aggregator). Since CoW Protocol is not considered an aggregator or liquidity source in this context, those fields are set as null.

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Stage 2: Labeling Transaction Origin

Most transactions don’t explicitly encode which wallet or frontend the user employed. We rely on a mix of transaction-level contract interactions and decoded event log data to infer the origin. Several aggregators emit clues about the transaction origin in their event logs. These can be either string text stating the integrator of the DEX aggregator, or addresses pointing to the referral or affiliate address of the swap. For example, KyberSwap’s ClientData events, LiFi’s integrator tags, and Paraswap’s partner addresses are identifiers that tell us whether the user came from MetaMask, Rabby, Ledger, or another interface. Table 4: Transaction Origin Attribution

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Stage 3: Transaction-Level Aggregation and Conflict Resolution

Once each swap event is categorized and labeled with origin information, we aggregate all events at the transaction level using transaction_hash as the key. This consolidation produces a single orderflow record per transaction, but it requires resolving conflicts when multiple protocols of different types participate.

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Selection Logic: Priority-Based with Chronological Tiebreaking

When multiple protocols appear in a single transaction under each entity (e.g., meta-aggregator), we apply a two-tier selection rule:

1. Primary criterion: Priority ranking (lowest rank number = highest priority)
2. Secondary criterion: Event order (lowest log_index = first event)

This handles two scenarios: Scenario A: Different Protocol Types When protocols from different tiers participate—for example, CoW Swap (rank 1) and KyberSwap Aggregator (rank 2)—the protocol with higher priority wins. CoW Swap is selected as the meta_aggregator. Scenario B: Same Protocol Type When multiple protocols share the same priority—for example, both LiFi and Bungee (both rank 2) routing portions of the same trade—the chronological tiebreaker applies. The protocol whose event appears first (lowest log_index) is selected.

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Stage 4: Final Schema Mapping

The aggregation process produces a transaction-level orderflow record with the following attribution dimensions:

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Liquidity View Flattening

To enable granular analysis of liquidity routing patterns, the dex.orderflow_liquidity_view flattens the transaction-level schema into a liquidity-source-level schema. This transformation creates one row per liquidity source. If a swap splits into 4 different AMM pools, it will be represented as 4 rows in the liquidity view model. This allows users to plot the output in a Sankey chart and also enables queries like:

• “Which AMM pools does LiFi route through most frequently?”
• “What percentage of CoW Protocol swaps use Uniswap V3 vs V4?”
• “Which solvers access which PMMs?”

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Flattened Schema Structure

The view maintains all transaction-level attribution fields (origin, meta_aggregator, aggregator, solver, etc.) and adds per-liquidity-source columns:

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Data Labels

We source the labels of solvers, frontends, private market makers, and hooks from various publicly available sources. Frontend labels are identified by a mix of integrators used by DEX aggregators. The table below outlines the labeling heuristics for the intermediaries involved in the swap.

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Design Assumptions and Limitations

The liquidity flow schema was designed to generalize how swap executions move through the DeFi stack, beginning at user-facing interfaces, passing through intermediaries such as aggregators and solvers, and concluding in settlement across DEX liquidity pools. In creating a standardized model, we have made certain simplifications and assumptions, leading to inherent trade-offs in attribution. DeFi infrastructure evolves constantly. New aggregators launch, existing ones add features, and protocols migrate to new contract versions. The schema requires active curation to stay accurate:

• Contract registries must be updated as protocols deploy new routers
• Event decoding must expand to parse new integrator metadata formats
• Classification rules need periodic review as protocol boundaries shift

In short, this work is inherently ongoing: the schema is not static and must adapt to reflect the evolving DEX landscape. Maintaining the accuracy and interpretability of the schema involves continuously identifying new protocols, routers, and integrators. This involves updating contract labels, decoding new events, and re-evaluating intermediary hierarchies to ensure analytical consistency over time.

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Known Gaps

There are known gaps in the coverage of aggregators and DEXs. Frontend and volume coverage of protocols not indexed by Allium will not be reflected in the orderflow schema. The following projects/protocols have been added to our roadmap for support.