The Application Layer Bottleneck
On traditional blockchains, every DeFi primitive — swapping, lending, bridging, oracle feeds — is implemented as a smart contract. This approach offers flexibility but comes with significant costs. Each contract call adds gas overhead. Complex operations require multiple contract interactions, increasing latency and failure risk. Security depends entirely on the contract developer, with no protocol-level guarantees.
The result is that DeFi on most chains is slower, more expensive, and less secure than it needs to be. COOL solves this by moving core financial primitives from the application layer into the protocol itself.
Native Settlement Engine
The settlement engine handles atomic multi-party transactions at the protocol level. Instead of chaining multiple smart contract calls, a complex trade involving three or four assets across different liquidity pools resolves in a single atomic operation. If any leg fails, the entire transaction reverts cleanly. Settlement is final within the consensus round — no waiting for additional confirmations.
This is particularly important for institutional use cases where settlement risk is a regulatory concern. Protocol-level settlement provides guarantees that smart-contract-based approaches cannot match.
Integrated Routing
The routing engine finds the optimal execution path across all available liquidity pools for any given trade. Unlike third-party aggregators that operate outside the protocol, COOL's router has direct access to pool state during transaction execution. This means routing decisions are based on the exact state at execution time — not on a stale snapshot from seconds earlier.
The router also supports split execution, distributing a large order across multiple pools to minimize price impact. Because routing is a protocol operation rather than a contract call, there is no additional gas cost for optimal path discovery.
Protocol-Level Oracles
Price feeds in COOL are not provided by third-party oracle networks. Instead, the protocol itself aggregates price data from on-chain sources (liquidity pool reserves, trade history) and off-chain attestations from a network of data providers. Each price update carries a cryptographic attestation proving the source and timestamp.
This eliminates the oracle manipulation attacks that have caused hundreds of millions in losses across DeFi. Protocol oracles update every block and are available to all applications at zero additional cost.
Built-In Bridge Contracts
Cross-chain asset movement is handled by bridge contracts embedded in the protocol. These contracts use a combination of light client verification and validator attestations to verify the state of external chains. Unlike third-party bridges that have been frequent targets of exploits, protocol-level bridges benefit from the same security guarantees as the consensus mechanism itself.
Currently supported chains include Ethereum, BSC, Solana, and Arbitrum, with additional integrations planned for the mainnet launch. Bridge transfers finalize within the same consensus round as the deposit transaction on the source chain is confirmed.
Performance Impact
Embedding services at the protocol level yields dramatic performance improvements. A token swap that requires ~250,000 gas on Ethereum (involving router contract, pool contract, and token contracts) executes on COOL with the equivalent of ~15,000 gas. Cross-pool trades that typically require 3-5 separate transactions complete atomically in one. Oracle reads that cost gas on other chains are free on COOL.
For end users, this translates to lower fees, faster execution, and a simpler experience. For developers, it means less boilerplate code and fewer external dependencies.
Still Extensible
Embedding core services does not mean COOL is a closed system. The protocol layer handles primitives — the building blocks that every financial application needs. Developers can still deploy custom smart contracts that compose with these primitives, combining protocol-level efficiency with application-level creativity.
Think of it as the difference between building a house on bedrock versus building it on sand. The foundation is solid and reliable; what you build on top is up to you.
Explore the embedded services in action on the Trade interface or read the technical details in Section 4 of our whitepaper.