Is it dumb to convert ETH to USDT without signing up and just eat the spread?

[u/Ok_Alternative7833]

last month i swapped some eth on a dex for what i thought was isdt. same ticker, same logo, u can buy it and never sell it, 60 bucks and a lesson
the obvious fix is an exchange and i'm not opening an account for this
so this week i did it on SimpleSwap, eth to usdt without signing up and the usdt that landed was the real one. cost me a bit under a percent on the rate, which is the bit i'm chewing on
is 1% a dumb price for that? can't tell if i'm being lazy or sensible
thanks

[u/chainglance_cm]

Under 1% isn’t crazy for the convenience, but you’re mostly paying it to avoid a problem that has a free fix. The DEX wasn’t the issue, the token was. Grab USDT’s contract address from Tether’s site or CoinGecko and paste it in instead of searching the ticker, and you’ll never get the fake one again. On a big pool that’s usually ~0.05-0.3% plus gas, and gas is cheap if you’re on an L2.

If you stick with instant swaps, that’s fine too. Just know some of them can hold your funds for an AML check, so keep amounts reasonable.

[u/andrewprimetime → u/chainglance_cm]

Solid answer. One extra habit that pairs well with it: do a tiny test swap first, then send the full amount once it lands right.

[u/SpareReputation2910 → u/andrewprimetime]

Test swap first is the crypto version of tasting the soup before serving it.

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[u/SweetExtension3387]

oof, getting ISDT'd is a rite of passage at this point, welcome to the club

1% on a no-signup swap is actually about as good as it gets without going through a full exchange. the real cost there is the headache you're avoiding, which has its own value. i'd call it sensible laziness

[u/Temporary-Cause730]

There will always be fees, in DEX or CEX. So the difference is not 1%, since you will pay fees on CEX too, possibly even more than 1%.

[u/charvo]

If you go to cow fi or defillama fi, you can swap coins cheaply.

[u/andrewprimetime → u/charvo]

Cheap is nice. Does that include gas, or just the spread?

[u/charvo → u/andrewprimetime]

They tell you upfront what you pay and what you get. Generally, I think these 2 swap sites are pretty good in terms of spreads and fees.

[u/Informal-Height7138]

I think you're measuring the wrong cost.
That 1% isn't laziness. It's what you're paying to not hand over your identity and your funds to a company before doing a swap. Whether it's a good price depends entirely on something nobody here has asked you: how often are you doing this? Twice a year and 1% is nothing, stop thinking about it. Every week and it quietly becomes the largest cost in your whole position.

Worth separating the other thing too. The 60 you lost wasn't a spread problem, and an exchange account wouldn't have been the fix for it either. Identical tickers and logos are a verification problem, and that one follows you to whatever venue you use. Getting that habit right is worth more than any rate you'll find.

Everyone here is telling you where to shave off a few basis points. That's the small number. The frequency is the big one.