Uniswap, the biggest ethereum based decentralized exchange with no order book has just crossed $3 billion in locked crypto assets.
The exchange was handling some $2 billion in trading volumes yesterday, with it unclear whether it was a glitch or something to do with yesterday’s hack of Harvest, and now handles about a quarter of a billion in trading volumes every day.
Trading pairs here have ballooned to near 20,000, a doubling since last time we looked which was just a few weeks ago.
This now earns more than half a million a day in fees which go to liquidity providers and soon enough to the UNI token holders.
Uni’s price however has fallen significantly from the high of $7 to now $2.84, but curiously it has managed to maintain this near $3 price for some time.
That suggests a floor maybe has been found for this still very new token and a very new business model where the public owns and governs this fully decentralized and fully code based exchange.
Due to its decentralized nature, any regulatory requirements especially under the Securities Act 1933, can not apply as the defi dapp has no one responsible for imposing anything because it’s just smart contract code that can very easily be forked.
It may well be some of this astonishing rise is because of that, especially as Uniswap was a tiny dapp that barely had some millions and some trading pairs on it at the beginning of the year, while now it is effectively a towering giant, far surpassing any exchange for the vastness of trading pairs.
Anyone can add any trading pair on here, which greatly explains the huge variety and the strength of crowdsourced input.
That makes this basically the Wikipedia of exchanges, but better because there are no admins that can ban you or block you here unlike the now corporateish Wikipedia.
And makes this everyone’s exchange or market place as even some kid in some basement can go on there and sell whatever token like putting up some market stall with no one able to say no or able to dictate anything at all.
