Uniswap

Uniswap is a popular decentralized trading protocol, known for its role in facilitating automated trading of decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens.
Uniswap creates more efficiency by solving liquidity issues with automated solutions, avoiding the problems which plagued the first decentralized exchanges. In September 2020, Uniswap went a step further by creating and awarding its own governance token, UNI, to past users of the protocol. This added both profitability potential and the ability for users to shape its future — an attractive aspect of decentralized entities.

Uniswap was launched in November 2018 as a proof of concept for automated market makers (AMMs). Hayden Adams is the inventor of the Uniswap Protocol and CEO at Uniswap Labs. 

Uniswap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on Ethereum that uses an automated market-making infrastructure to let traders, developers, and liquidity providers participate in a secure marketplace. 

AMMs allow for automatic and permissionless trading that removes the need for the traditional broker-dealer model that matches individual buy and sell orders. This system enables users to pool together assets that participants trade against. 

AMMs aim to solve the challenge of illiquidity previously faced by decentralized exchanges by creating liquidity pools and incentivizing liquidity providers to supply their assets into the system. 

Uniswap's maximum supply is 1 billion UNI. More than 627 million UNI are in circulation as of December 2021.

Uniswap is the leading DEX by volume, with a nearly 80% market share of weekly DEX volume as of Nov. 29. 2021, according to Dune Analytics. The nearest rival is Sushiswap with its 11% share. 

Despite the gap in trading volume, there is a long list of competitors in the DeFi space. Notable rivals to watch include Curve, Sushiswap, Pancakeswap, and more. 

Ethereum-based cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash has proposed an airdrop designed to reward its early users.

News for Uniswap Crypto (UNI)