One-Sided Liquidity Pools: Earn Trading Fees Without Pairing Two Tokens

Classic liquidity provision has a famous entry barrier: you need both tokens, in equal value, before you can deposit anything. One-sided liquidity removes that barrier — you deposit a single token and still earn trading fees. Here's how it works and when to use it.

The old way: 50/50 pools

On a v2-style DEX, a pool holds two assets in equal value. To add $1,000 of liquidity to a TOKEN/USDT pool, you must deposit $500 of TOKEN and $500 of USDT. Your liquidity is spread across every possible price from zero to infinity — meaning most of it sits where trading never happens, earning nothing.

The v3 idea: concentrated liquidity

PancakeSwap v3 changed the model. Instead of covering all prices, you choose a price range, and your capital only works inside it. The same dollars provide far deeper liquidity where trading actually occurs — which means more fee income per dollar deposited.

Where "one-sided" comes in

Here's the elegant part: if your chosen price range sits entirely above or below the current price, the pool only needs one of the two tokens from you.

  • Deposit your token in a range above the current price → as the price rises through your range, the pool sells your token for USDX. You earn fees the whole way up. It behaves like a sell limit order that pays you.
  • Deposit USDX in a range below the current price → as the price falls through your range, the pool buys the token with your USDX. A buy limit order that pays you.

Either way you collect the pool's trading fee — 0.25% or 1% of every swap that crosses your position.

Why pair with USDX?

Pairing against a stable-value quote asset keeps the math readable: your range is set in dollars, your fees accrue in predictable units, and your position doesn't carry a second volatile asset. The whole 0xFactory ecosystem — token launches, rewards, pools — settles around USDX, so USDX pairs also route naturally against every token created on the platform.

Opening a position takes two minutes

  1. Open Liquidity Pools and connect your wallet on BNB Chain.
  2. Pick the token, the side (sell your token / buy with USDX), and your price range.
  3. Choose the fee tier — 0.25% for active pairs, 1% for exotic ones.
  4. Confirm. Manage the position, collect fees, or withdraw anytime — everything stays in your wallet.

Run the pool business yourself

If you'd rather be the venue than the trader: 0xPools is a white-label PancakeSwap v3 liquidity manager you host on your own domain — every pool created on your site pays its creation fee to your wallet.

Key takeaways

  • One-sided = deposit a single token, no 50/50 requirement.
  • A one-sided range behaves like a limit order that earns trading fees instead of paying them.
  • Concentrated ranges make each dollar work harder than v2 ever could.
  • On BNB Chain, USDX pairs keep pricing simple and fees predictable.