With new apps and chains launching every day, the ecosystem is more fragmented than ever.

Whether it's niche apps, emerging platforms, or established market leaders, the challenge remains the same: apps struggle to provide a user-friendly experience for new users from different ecosystems.

This article explores Zaps, a product feature by LI.FI that tackles this challenge. Zaps simplify user experience by handling complex bridging and swapping processes in the background, allowing applications to focus on delivering seamless user journeys.

Let’s dive into Zaps!

The Broken UX

The current cross-chain UX is far from ideal. Users face significant hurdles when trying to engage with apps across different chains.

Manually bridging and swapping tokens, along with refueling gas fees on the destination chain, are just a few of the tedious steps required to even try an app. This discourages users from exploring new apps in newer ecosystems, often confining them to familiar ecosystems.

This fragmentation of users across different chains limits the reach of apps. It’s difficult to attract a broader audience when an app is restricted to a single chain. This restriction can stifle growth, especially for niche apps trying to stand out in a crowded market.

Just Zap!

With Zaps, applications can overcome this cross-chain UX bottleneck. You can set up a one-click action button for tasks like staking, adding liquidity, buying an NFT, or depositing assets into your platform from any supported chain and asset.

What are Zaps?

Zaps is a feature that extends our destination swap capabilities to support any kind of contract call passed through bridges and executed on the destination chain. This makes it much easier for users to try out your app without the hassle of going through multiple steps.

Zaps essentially function as an abstraction layer over backend processes, streamlining what would otherwise be multi-step operations into a single action. This simplification aims to improve the user experience by reducing complexity and potential points of friction in same-chain and cross-chain interactions.

How do Zaps work?

When you request a route from the LI.FI SDK/API for a cross-chain swap, you can include contract call data as an extra parameter. Once the contract call data is passed to the underlying executors (bridges, solvers, DEXs), they handle the contract calls on the destination chain.

Additionally, LI.FI also takes care of managing gas fees, minimizing slippage, and determining the most efficient route.

Note: This is only possible on bridges that support cross-chain contract calls. These include Everclear (previously Connext), Stargate, and CelerIM.

Here is a live example from Dinero (formerly Redacted), a liquid-staking platform.

You can directly mint pxETH from various supported chains and assets directly in the platform. Not just that, you can also choose which chain you’d like to receive your pxETH.

It’s not just Dinero that uses Zaps, apps like Hyperliquid use LI.FI Zaps for same chain swap, and Fjourd uses Zaps for cross-chain and same-chain swaps.

Zaps can be integrated into any type of application, such as:

1. Yield Farming: Users can directly deposit assets into yield farming pools on different chains in a single step.

2. NFT Purchases: Users can purchase NFTs without needing to manually bridge or swap tokens.

3. LPing: Users can provide liquidity to DEXs on different chains with one click.

4. Staking: Users can stake tokens on different chains without manually bridging or swapping assets.

5. Lending and Borrowing: Easily deposit assets into lending platforms on supported chains with a single click.

And many more apps that have smart contracts built to hold funds.

Conclusion

Zaps will continue to evolve, with ongoing upgrades to support more chains and assets. This expansion ensures that your app can always offer one-click interactions for users across a growing number of ecosystems. Currently supporting 20+ chains and 14+ bridges, we are continuously working to add support for more chains and assets.

As cross-chain interactions become as simple as a single click, new possibilities will emerge. Zaps are more than just a feature—they're a gateway to a more unified and user-friendly on-chain world.

Zaps will make your app more unified and user-friendly. Get started today with Zaps using our API and SDKs.

Get Started With LI.FI Today

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Disclaimer: This article is only meant for informational purposes. The projects mentioned in the article are our partners, but we encourage you to do your due diligence before using or buying tokens of any protocol mentioned. This is not financial advice.