Uniswap Overview

Founded: 2017

Key persons: Hayden Adams

Capitalization: $15,610,788,099

Trading volume (24h): $237,186,196

CoinMarketCap rank: 11

Uniswap (UNI) general project description

Uniswap (UNI) is a decentralized exchange that uses the AMM (Automated Market Maker). Uniswap became popular due to its mission of being a completely decentralized marketplace where any tokens could be traded. The project was one of the first to use a “liquidity delivery model” rather than an order book. Price curve can be explained in an equation, x*y=k, where x and y are the number of tokens in a transaction, and k is an invariant. This formula states that trades must not change the product (k) of a pair’s reserve balances (x and y).

The first version of the project was launched in 2018. Since then, the project has been a benchmark among DeFi applications, developing and implementing innovations in crypto finance.

Current state (ecosystem and partners)

The main feature of this project is to provide liquidity to the exchange pool. Users pay commission for any trade placed (it can vary from 0.05% to 1% depending on the tokens to be swapped). These commissions are used to calculate the amounts to be paid to liquidity providers. Uniswap requires no registration or validation procedures — all transactions take place within a smart contract deployed in the Ethereum Virtual Machine. The exchange does not hold user funds, providing only the platform and infrastructure for trades or token swaps.

Future plans and development (roadmap)

The original version of Uniswap (UNI) was opensource, leading to numerous blockchain clones. The second version, released in 2020, was extremely successful and better protected, while the third version of the platform, released in May 2021, had a GPL license embedded. The latest version introduced limit order functionality, concentrated liquidity (a function to withdraw liquidity from the pool at a set price range), a flexible commission system, and several other improvements. These actions have allowed Uniswap (UNI) to become one of the most successful projects in terms of revenue (around $100m per month) with total value locked at ~$5B.