Use SyncSwap when you want to exchange tokens from your own wallet on a supported Ethereum layer 2. If you want to earn a share of trading fees instead, you can provide liquidity, but you must be willing to hold both assets and accept changes in their value. The choice is a swap for a trade, a Classic Pool for a volatile pair, or a Stable Pool for assets expected to stay close in price.
An automated market maker (AMM) connects your wallet to pools of tokens supplied by other users. When you swap, a smart contract takes one token and sends you another from a pool; there is no matching order from another trader. The amount you receive depends on the pool’s reserves and its trading fee.
On a centralised exchange, you usually trade against a balance held by the exchange. Here, you sign transactions with your own wallet and pay network gas to have them processed. Providing liquidity is a different action: you deposit assets into a pool and receive a position representing your share of its reserves.
SyncSwap on zkSync Era uses assets on that network; a balance on another chain cannot fund the same transaction. If your tokens are elsewhere, move them to the network you intend to use first and retain enough of its gas asset for transactions. Check the selected network and token contract, since identical token symbols can refer to different assets.
A swap is the action you take to change tokens; Classic Pool and Stable Pool describe how a pair’s reserves are priced. Pool design matters to a trader through the quoted output and to a liquidity provider through the assets and price movements they take on. Use this map to identify the job before committing funds:
For a swap, compare the amount you will receive rather than choosing by the pool’s name alone. For liquidity, start with what you would be comfortable holding: depositing a pair is an ongoing exposure to both tokens, while swapping ends with the token you bought.
A wallet swap requires the input token on the chosen network, gas for the transaction, and an acceptable quoted output. Suppose you have $1,000 of USDC on zkSync Era and want ETH. If you want to finish holding ETH, use the SyncSwap token swap to exchange it from your wallet; if you want to collect trading fees while holding both assets, consider a liquidity deposit instead. SyncSwap draws the ETH for that trade from pool reserves.
An ERC-20 token such as USDC may require a separate approval before a smart contract can spend it, and that approval can cost gas. syncswap.dev is where you can make the wallet swap. Before signing, check both the token you are sending and the minimum amount of ETH you can receive; the displayed quote can change before the transaction is processed.
Pool depth affects that quote. For example, imagine a Classic Pool with $50,000 of USDC and $50,000 worth of ETH, with no trading fee for this calculation. Adding $1,000 USDC would return ETH worth about $980 at the starting price: the constant-product curve gives $50,000 × $1,000 ÷ $51,000. That roughly 2% difference is price impact from the trade itself, even if the market price outside the pool does not move.
Slippage tolerance addresses a separate change: how far the result may move from the quote before your transaction executes. At a quoted $980 output, a 0.5% tolerance would set a minimum near $975; it would not recover the roughly $20 of price impact already in the quote. Your total cost also includes the pool’s trading fee and network gas, both of which vary, so check the final figures before signing. A transaction that fails its minimum-output check can still use gas.
Providing liquidity puts your assets into a pool for other traders to swap against and gives you a share of its trading fees. You generally deposit both tokens in the pair at their current value ratio, then hold a position that you can later redeem for a share of the pool’s reserves. The quantities you withdraw may differ from those you deposited.
Consider depositing $100 of ETH and $100 of USDC into a Classic Pool. If ETH then doubles in price, the pool’s rebalancing would leave that position worth about $283 before fees, while simply holding the original tokens would be worth $300. The roughly $17 gap is impermanent loss: a comparison with holding, not a fixed fee charged when you withdraw.
Fees can narrow or exceed that gap, but they depend on trading volume and your share of the pool. Before depositing, compare the pool’s reserves, fee terms, and the pair’s likely price relationship with the exposure you want. If your goal is only to turn USDC into ETH, a swap gets you to that result without maintaining a liquidity position.