How Relay Powers $20B+ in Crosschain Swaps across 85+ Networks

Relay is the settlement layer for onchain payments, helping users spend any asset to transact on any chain instantly. Its infrastructure connects consumer applications, liquidity, and transaction execution across blockchain networks, enabling platforms like OpenSea, Phantom, MetaMask, Axiom, and Fun.xyz to deliver seamless crosschain transactions to their users.

Today, Relay is the #1 source of transactions on the Base network and has processed more than 100 million transactions across 85+ chains. At this scale, Relay relies on the CoinGecko API for reliable token pricing data that powers its internal pricing infrastructure from quote generation to settlement.

Key Metrics at a Glance

• CoinGecko API's coverage across 260+ blockchain networks and millions of onchain tokens enables Relay to extend its routing layer to 85+ chains and millions of assets, including Solana, Tron, Bitcoin, and every major EVM network.

• Backed by this pricing layer, Relay has facilitated over $20B in crosschain volume across more than 100M transactions, and is currently the #1 source of transactions on the Base network.

• Relay optimizes its data infrastructure costs through CoinGecko API's batched endpoints and highly scalable one-call-equals-one-credit pricing model, keeping market data retrieval cost-efficient as transaction volumes scale into the hundreds of millions.

The Challenge: Pricing Crosschain Assets From Day One

Relay's routing layer has to quote assets across 85+ chains, from BTC, ETH, and major stablecoins to newly launched tokens that may only trade on a single DEX pool. It also has to account for assets that exist across multiple networks, where each version has its own contract address, liquidity profile, and trading activity.

Building this pricing layer in-house would mean indexing pools across every supported chain, tracking new tokens as they appear, normalizing prices against USD, and keeping that data fresh enough to support live quotes. At Relay's scale of 100M+ transactions and more than $20B in crosschain volume, even small gaps in asset coverage or price freshness can affect quote accuracy, execution quality, and user trust.

This is where CoinGecko's onchain data layer, powered by GeckoTerminal, becomes critical. It gives Relay access to broad token and pool coverage without having to build and maintain a parallel indexing system across every chain.

Why Relay Chose CoinGecko API

Because Relay's quote layer has to price every asset across every supported chain accurately and in real time, the choice of price data provider has direct consequences for both user experience and operational efficiency at scale. CoinGecko API was selected as Relay's onchain data source for three reasons in particular:

• Comprehensive coverage: CoinGecko's data spans 260+ blockchain networks and millions of onchain tokens, with newly launched assets indexed as soon as they appear in a liquid pool. For Relay, this means new chains and long-tail tokens become routable as quickly as they go live.

• Real-time data freshness: CoinGecko's onchain data infrastructure is cacheless and delivers prices in real time for millions of tokens and pools, which means every quote Relay generates reflects live market conditions at the moment of the request rather than a delayed snapshot.

• Operational efficiency at scale: CoinGecko API offers batched endpoints and a flat one-call-equals-one-credit model that can be up to 100x more cost-efficient than major providers at high request volumes. Its advanced pool filtering also enables scanning millions of liquidity pools through a single API call instead of building parallel infrastructure across networks. For platforms processing hundreds of millions of transactions, this translates into lower data infrastructure overhead as Relay scales.

How Relay Leverages CoinGecko API

Relay's integration of CoinGecko API supports the full lifecycle of a crosschain transaction, from helping users find the right asset, to generating an accurate quote, to deciding which pools and tokens are eligible for routing.

Token Discovery in the Swap Widget

Before a user can swap an asset, they need to find it. Relay's swap interface, which is also exposed through its partner network, has to resolve different types of user input into the correct tradable asset across 85+ chains. That input might be a token symbol, a partial token name, or a contract address.

The /onchain/search/pools endpoint supports this discovery layer by searching across pools and tokens indexed by GeckoTerminal. It lets Relay identify relevant assets by token symbol, token name, token contract address, or pool contract address, without maintaining a separate token discovery index for every supported network.

Real-Time Quote Pricing

Once a user selects the assets they want to swap, Relay generates a quote showing expected output, fees, and USD-denominated values across the transaction. This is where CoinGecko API becomes the pricing layer behind the user experience.

For major assets like BTC, ETH, stablecoins, and listed tokens, Relay uses CoinGecko’s /simple/price endpoint to retrieve reference prices of up to 500+ assets in a single request. This endpoint also supports Relay's Commerce Payments product, where a merchant can specify a fixed destination amount in USD and Relay calculates the required input amount across the buyer's chosen chain and asset. CoinGecko’s pricing data also supports Relay’s API and SDK, helping power both Relay’s own quotes and the applications built on top of Relay.

For long-tail tokens that are identified by contract address, Relay uses the /onchain/networks/{network}/tokens/multi/{addresses} endpoint to retrieve token market data for up to 50 contracts on a single network in one API call, including USD price, FDV, 24-hour volume, liquidity reserves, and top-pool data. This is especially important for assets that trade primarily through DEX liquidity rather than centralized exchanges.

Pool Qualification and Liquidity Monitoring

Beyond pricing individual swaps, Relay also needs to decide which pools and assets are suitable for routing. As Relay expands across more networks and DEXs, qualifying pools one chain at a time would create unnecessary operational overhead.

CoinGecko’s /pools/megafilter endpoint gives Relay a more scalable way to filter pool data across supported networks. Relay uses it to screen pools that satisfy routing-relevant factors such as liquidity reserves, 24-hour trading volume, and other pool quality signals. Adding support for new chains becomes as simple as applying existing filtering logic to a new network. This helps the Relay team focus engineering resources on routing logic, solver economics, and partner integrations instead of rebuilding pool discovery and qualification infrastructure in-house.

Business and User Outcomes

Relay operates across 85+ chains, where every swap depends on accurate pricing, reliable token discovery, and safe liquidity across fragmented onchain markets. With CoinGecko’s API, Relay responds faster to market demand, operates more efficiently, and makes token discovery easier for users.

Capturing Early Market Demand

CoinGecko allows Relay to support pricing assets on new chains and newly launched tokens as soon as they begin trading. This matters to Relay’s business because swap demand typically peaks at launch, allowing Relay to capture more swap volume.

Cost Efficiency at Scale

CoinGecko gives Relay access to multi-chain price and market data through scalable batched endpoints and a flat credit model that is more cost-efficient at scale than other crypto data providers. This translates into lower and more predictable operational costs for Relay as transaction volumes scale, while reserving engineering capacity on routing logic, solver economics, and partner integrations.

Frictionless Token Discovery

Relay users can discover assets using the token and coin search methods they naturally rely on, whether by symbol, name, or contract address. This is important for Relay because intuitive discovery creates a smoother swap experience and helps turn first-time usage into repeat swaps.

What’s Next On Relay’s Roadmap

Over the next 12 months, Relay is focused on expanding the reach and reliability of its settlement network as crosschain usage grows across consumer and institutional markets. The team plans to continue onboarding new chains as they launch, especially networks with fresh liquidity pools that partner applications want to access immediately.

Relay's integration roadmap also extends across more wallets, payment processors, and consumer platforms. As stablecoin adoption accelerates and more value moves across chains, Relay aims to make crosschain execution feel invisible to users, whether they are swapping assets, making payments, or interacting with applications across multiple networks.

Across each of these priorities, the pricing layer remains foundational. CoinGecko API's coverage of long-tail tokens, onchain liquidity, and reference pricing gives Relay a data layer that can scale alongside every new chain, asset, and partner it supports.

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This article was written in collaboration with Relay team.