CoW Protocol Launch event

Event · PageRank 0.0008

Overview

CoW Protocol began life as Gnosis Protocol, a batch-auction based decentralised trading mechanism launched by Gnosis in 2020. Gnosis Protocol v2 went live in April 2021, adding a solver competition that settles orders in batches and exploits Coincidence of Wants (CoWs) between traders; its first user interface was CowSwap. In January 2022 the GIP-13 proposal was put to Gnosis DAO to spin the protocol out as an independent project, and in 2022 it became CoW Protocol, governed by the newly created CoW DAO with its own COW token, having raised $23 million in the spinout.

Within the DeFi Intel graph, CoW Protocol Launch connects to 1 tracked entity, most strongly to CoW Swap.

Relations

Top connections in the DeFi Intel knowledge graph (confidence-weighted, 1 of 1 total).

Frequently asked questions

Where did CoW Protocol come from?

It originated as Gnosis Protocol, a batch-auction DEX launched by Gnosis in 2020; version 2 launched in April 2021 with a solver-based design, and its first UI was called CowSwap.

When did it become independent of Gnosis?

Proposal GIP-13 was submitted in January 2022 to spin the protocol out of Gnosis DAO; the spinout completed in 2022 with the creation of CoW DAO and the COW token, alongside a $23 million raise.

What does 'CoW' stand for?

Coincidence of Wants — the situation, exploitable within batch auctions, where two traders' opposing orders can be matched directly against each other rather than routed through on-chain liquidity.