What is Uniswap (UNI)?
What is Uniswap?
Uniswap is a decentralised protocol for trading cryptocurrencies via smart contracts. It runs on the Ethereum network and ranks among the top five DeFi applications by total value locked. Uniswap was the first project to implement an automated market maker and liquidity pools.
Who created Uniswap, and when?
The creator of the Uniswap protocol is Hayden Adams. In the summer of 2017 he left Siemens, where, after college, he had worked as a mechanical engineer. On the advice of his friend Karl Floersch, then at the Ethereum Foundation, Adams began learning smart‑contract development.
Several months later Karl suggested Adams build a digital‑asset trading application using an automated market maker (AMM).
The first to propose the AMM idea on Ethereum was Alan Lu, a developer at Gnosis. His colleague Martin Koppelmann passed the concept to Vitalik Buterin, who outlined it in broad strokes on Reddit in 2016 and on his personal blog.
In August 2018 Adams received a $100,000 grant from the Ethereum Foundation to implement the concept.
Adams was assisted in creating Uniswap by Microsoft and Google developer Kallil Capuozzo, programmers Uchiel Vilchis, Philippe Daian, Dan Robinson, Andy Milenius and others.
By March 2018 the developers presented a demo version of Uniswap. On 2 November 2018 the full version of the protocol launched.
Unveiling Uniswap, Adams listed its main characteristics:
“There is no central token or platform fee. There is no special treatment for early investors, users or developers. Token listing is free. All smart-contract functions are open and can be improved.”
Who coined the name Uniswap?
Initially Adams wanted to call the protocol Unipeg—a blend of Unicorn and Pegasus. When Karl Floersch first told Vitalik Buterin about the project, he said: “Unipeg? Uniswap sounds better.” Adams agreed.
How does Uniswap work?
The Uniswap protocol consists of a series of smart contracts that let any user trade directly with one another on the Ethereum blockchain. Technically, it is a decentralised exchange (DEX).
Uniswap and other AMMs: a beginner’s guide
Uniswap is a public tool that distributes rewards among liquidity providers. Providers sustain the exchange by “locking” tokens, enabling others to trade in a decentralised system.
The platform requires no registration or KYC/AML checks. To use it you only need a browser wallet that supports Ethereum, such as MetaMask.
What are liquidity pools?
As a decentralised project, Uniswap has no administrators curating new cryptocurrency listings as on centralised exchanges. Anyone can add a new ERC‑20 asset to Uniswap.
To do so, you open a liquidity pool—a separate “market” for a specific trading pair. Creating a pool for a new token requires some of the new tokens and a base ERC‑20 currency of equal value.
Uniswap does not match sellers and buyers to set prices; instead it uses the equation: x * y = k. In the equation, x and y are the amounts of tokens available in the liquidity pool; k is a constant.
Based on the balance between the tokens in the pair, and the interplay of supply and demand, the equation calculates the price of each token. This pricing and quotation mechanism is known as an automated market maker (AMM).
Each token has its own smart contract and at least one liquidity pool. Any Uniswap user can trade the coin or add funds to a pool, earning a share of the fees.
Whenever new tokens are added to a Uniswap pool, the user receives an ERC‑20 liquidity‑provider token (LP). LP tokens can be swapped, transferred and used in other decentralised applications.
When funds are withdrawn, LP tokens are burned. Each such token represents the user’s share of the pool’s total assets. It also entitles the holder to a proportional share of the swap fees collected by the pool.
How do you trade tokens on Uniswap?
The Uniswap protocol is available through the interface uniswap.org. You can connect via a browser wallet that supports Ethereum.
Users can swap tokens or add assets to a Uniswap liquidity pool. Choose the token you want to receive and the asset you want to pay with. Then approve the transaction in your wallet and confirm the operation, paying the Ethereum network fee.
Access to Uniswap is also available via DeFi aggregators—apps that collate pool data in real time, connect to several decentralised protocols from a single platform and provide additional features. Popular aggregators include 1inch, InstaDApp and Zapper.
There are also specialist liquidity managers that simplify trading and aim to increase returns.
Financial alchemy: how to increase returns with Uniswap v3 liquidity managers
What is Uniswap v2?
In April 2019 the team raised over $1m in a funding round led by investment firm Paradigm. The money went into creating the second version of Uniswap (Uniswap v2) with a set of new features.
Swapping any ERC‑20 tokens with each other
In the first version of the protocol a new asset could be listed only against ETH. In Uniswap v2 any ERC‑20 token can be paired in a pool with any other ERC‑20 asset. Core contracts use Wrapped Ether (WETH) in place of ETH, though end users can still use ETH via helper contracts.
If two ERC‑20 tokens do not form a direct pair and lack a common pair, they can still be swapped as long as there is a path between them. Router contracts are used to optimise both direct and multi‑step swaps.
Improved pricing via oracles
Uniswap v2 provides improved control of price quotations thanks to oracles.
Flash swaps
Flash swaps allow the withdrawal of any amount of tokens to perform, for example, arbitrage and margin‑trading operations.
What is the UNI token?
UNI is a governance token designed for participation in the Uniswap governance system, particularly for voting. The project’s creators suddenly announced its issuance in September 2020.
Distribution was unusual. Instead of a token sale the team conducted an airdrop, crediting a fixed amount of UNI to every user of the decentralised exchange who had performed any action on it at least once.
Immediately after issuance, the price of Uniswap (UNI) rose severalfold, and it entered the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. According to CoinMarketCap, in early May 2022 the asset’s total capitalisation exceeded $7bn; it trades on all leading cryptocurrency exchanges.
How is SushiSwap related to Uniswap?
For a long time Uniswap lagged centralised exchanges in trading activity, and within DeFi there were applications with much higher total value locked (TVL), notably MakerDAO.
The protocol’s popularity surged after the launch of its second version. According to DeFi Pulse, TVL rose from about $36m at the launch of Uniswap v2 in May 2019 to nearly $2bn by late September.
Amid the 2020 hype other DeFi projects began to copy Uniswap’s model—namely liquidity pools and the AMM mechanism—while adding more attractive terms for users.
At that point the main competitor became SushiSwap, a fork of Uniswap. It had one crucial difference: its own governance token. Initially, the protocol allowed users to stake existing Uniswap liquidity tokens to earn income. The governance token was distributed to all pool participants, which significantly increased their rewards. In short order SushiSwap managed to “poach” about 70% of Uniswap’s liquidity.
However, after SUSHI rewards were reduced, the protocol lost its former liquidity metrics. Uniswap ultimately regained leadership after releasing the UNI governance token.
Just add a token: how Uniswap became the first DEX to overtake Coinbase
How is Uniswap developing?
As of early May 2022 Uniswap remains one of the principal DeFi projects: it ranks fifth on DeFi Pulse by total value locked, at $7bn.
In December 2020 Uniswap managed to secure a quorum to pass its first decision. Community members approved a grants programme to develop the ecosystem using UNI tokens.
In May 2021, exactly a year after the unveiling of the second version, the third version of the decentralised exchange—Uniswap v3—went live. It introduced radically new features and components, including concentrated liquidity, range limit orders and multiple positions within a single pool.
Concentrated liquidity and Optimism: can Uniswap keep its lead among DEXs?
Soon after, Uniswap users backed deploying the protocol on Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer‑2 solution. In July of the same year the decentralised exchange launched an alpha version on the Optimistic Ethereum mainnet. At the end of that year Uniswap was deployed on Polygon.
Under regulatory pressure in the summer of 2021 Uniswap ceased offering 129 tokens in its interface, citing “the evolving regulatory landscape”. Since April 2022 the exchange has blocked users under sanctions.
In spring 2022 the team launched a venture arm, Uniswap Labs Ventures, to invest in Web3 products.
What is Uniswap v3?
Uniswap’s new version differs from the previous one by emphasising capital efficiency through the concept of concentrated liquidity. Liquidity providers (LPs) can choose a specific price range for supplying funds to a pool.
This allows market participants to concentrate liquidity where most trading activity occurs. As a result LPs can increase capital efficiency, directing spare funds to other pools and investment instruments. This approach helps diversify risk.
Uniswap v3 also introduces the concept of active liquidity. If the price moves outside the LP’s chosen range, the liquidity is effectively removed from the pool, stopping fee income.
When this happens, liquidity shifts entirely into one of the pool’s assets. At that point the LP can either wait for the price to return to the specified range or adjust the range to a more relevant level.
Uniswap also added a new order type: a range limit order (orig. Range Limit Orders). It lets LPs allocate one type of token to a range above or below the current market price. When the price enters the user‑specified corridor, one asset is sold for the other. Using this feature over a narrow range can approximate a standard limit order.
The new release also introduces multiple positions: LPs can provide liquidity to the same pool according to different price ranges that may partially overlap.
Uniswap v3 offers a three‑tier fee structure for liquidity providers, with rates of 0.05%, 0.3% and 1% per trade. The company expects the 0.05% tier to be used mainly for stablecoin pairs, 0.3% for pools such as ETH/DAI, and 1% for far more volatile pairs with low‑liquidity assets.
Further reading
What is Ethereum (ETH)?
What is impermanent loss (Impermanent Loss)?
What is a decentralised autonomous organisation?
What is MakerDAO?
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