> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.socket.tech/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What is Socket

> Socket is the universal routing engine that helps you optimise how you move money on blockchains with smart-routing across fragmented markets, payment methods, chains and stablecoins.

## Introduction

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Socket stack" icon="layer-group" href="/about/why-socket">
    Understand the product layers behind Socket routing, execution, and settlement
  </Card>

  <Card title="How to integrate Socket" icon="puzzle-piece" href="/about/ways-to-use-socket">
    Choose the integration surface that matches your product and workflow
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Why Socket

Moving money across crypto and real-world payment rails is fragmented:

* **Chains and assets**: 50+ chains, 10,000+ assets, stablecoin variants, wrapped assets, native gas tokens, RWAs, and other token formats.
* **Liquidity and execution**: Bridge providers, DEX liquidity, solver networks, money markets, perps venues, and orderbooks all expose different constraints.
* **Payment rails**: 50+ payment methods across local rails, cards, exchanges, fiat currencies, geographies, and compliance requirements.
* **Operations**: Building these integrations one by one is expensive to maintain, brittle in production, and hard to support without clear transaction data and status tracking.

Socket packages this complexity behind production APIs and embeddable surfaces so teams can quote, execute, and track money movement through one integration.

## Common paths

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Start integrating" icon="rocket" href="/integrate/introduction">
    Build with Socket API.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Explore use cases" icon="lightbulb" href="/about/use-cases/cross-chain-swaps">
    See the routing flows Socket supports.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>