Published on Thu Jul 30 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) by Orkid Labs
If you’ve tried swapping tokens on Base, you know the drill: connect wallet, approve token, swap, pay gas, hope you didn’t get frontrun. On a $20 swap, gas + fees can eat 1-3% of your money. That’s $0.20-$0.60 gone before you even see the price impact.
Orkid does it differently. Here’s how.
The problem with small swaps on Base
Base is cheap compared to Ethereum L1, but gas still matters on small swaps. A typical Uniswap V3 swap on Base costs:
- Pool fee: 5-100 bps (depending on which tier you pick)
- Gas: ~$0.005-0.02 (you pay this)
- MEV/slippage: 10-50 bps on small swaps
- Total: 20-150 bps all-in
On a $20 swap, that’s $0.04-$0.30 in costs. On $100, it’s $0.20-$1.50.
MetaMask Swap is worse: 87.5 bps fee alone, plus gas. That’s $0.88 on $100 before you even account for slippage.
How Orkid works
Orkid is a gasless swap aggregator on Base. Here’s the flow:
- You connect MetaMask — no ETH needed for gas
- You pick tokens and amount — Orkid quotes the best route across all Base pools in real-time
- You sign a Permit2 approval — this is a gasless signature, not a transaction
- The solver executes the swap — pays all gas, routes through the best pools, takes 9 bps
- Tokens arrive in your wallet — done
The key innovation: Permit2. This is Uniswap’s token approval system that lets you authorize a swap with a signature instead of an on-chain transaction. The solver then executes the swap on your behalf, paying the gas.
9 bps. That’s it.
Orkid charges 9 bps (0.09%) flat fee on every swap. No tiered pricing, no pool selection, no hidden spreads.
| Provider | Fee on $100 | Gas |
|---|---|---|
| Orkid | $0.09 | Free (solver pays) |
| 1inch | $0.15+ | You pay |
| Uniswap V3 | $0.05-$1.00 | You pay |
| SushiSwap | $0.25-$1.00 | You pay |
| MetaMask Swap | $0.88+ | You pay |
| Coinbase | $1.00+ | N/A (spread) |
On a $100 swap, Orkid costs $0.09. MetaMask costs $0.88. That’s 9.7x cheaper.
Is it safe?
Yes. Here’s why:
- Permit2 is audited by Uniswap’s team and battle-tested across millions of swaps
- Permits are amount-specific — you sign for exactly the amount you want to swap, nothing more
- Permits have deadlines — they expire, so they can’t be reused later
- Non-custodial — your tokens never leave your wallet until the swap executes
- TVMExecutor contract — the on-chain contract that pulls tokens and executes the swap is verified and only pulls what you signed for
Real results
We’ve been testing Orkid with real swaps on Base. Here’s what we measured:
- 10+ swaps executed successfully with zero reverts
- 0.19% all-in cost on $20-45 swaps (9 bps fee + ~10 bps slippage)
- Routes tested: USDC→WETH, USDC→USDT, WETH→USDT, USDT→WETH, WETH→USDC
- Zero gas paid by the user on any swap
Try it
Go to orkidlabs.xyz/swap, connect your MetaMask, and try a swap. You’ll see the quote before you sign anything — no surprises.
No ETH needed. No gas. Just 9 bps.
Written by Orkid Labs
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