Uniswap – a sector-leading DEX – has just announced the Uniswap V2 mainnet launch.
We are thrilled to announce Uniswap V2 has been deployed to the Ethereum mainet!!!
Read the Uniswap V2 launch blogpost for more information on the launch.https://t.co/CLPQok6KO4
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— Uniswap Protocol ?? (@UniswapProtocol) May 18, 2020
The highly anticipated launch comes complete with a suite of new features, a UI/UX facelift, and an improved portal to quickly track on-chain metrics like volume, liquidity, price and trade history.
While many were aware that Uniswap V2 was on the horizon, today’s announcement has energized the wider DeFi landscape as many have regarded Uniswap as a leading indicator of DeFi (and Ethereum’s) future growth potential. For those looking to do a deep dive on V2 and what it entails, check out our coverage here.
What’s New?
The launch of Uniswap V2 comes with a couple of key upgrades including:
Migration Portal
Those providing liquidity to Uniswap V1 can now migrate their liquidity directly to V2 through the Migration Portal on the Uniswap front-end.
Perhaps the most promising aspect of Uniswap V2 is that liquidity provisions are changing so that users can enter into pools between any two tokens (i.e. MKR <> DAI) without having to use ETH as the main source of collateral.
Updated Interface
Uniswap V2 comes with an enhanced interface to swap, send, and pool tokens in a similar, yet optimized fashion to Uniswap V1. Most notable by the sleek new branding, Uniswap V2 further optimizes a sector-leading token exchange easily digestible by non-technical users.
Info Tracking
While many power users were aware of uniswap.info in the past, this announcement gives the Uniswap information aggregator site a facelift, giving users an easy way to track metrics on different pools and see which pools have garnered the most liquidity.
New Features
Outside of the UX improvements, Uniswap V2 introduces a suite of exciting new features including but not limited to:
- ERC20 / ERC20 Token Pairs
- Uniswap-native Price Oracles
- Flash Swaps
With this, Uniswap now has the potential to aggregate much more liquidity as users are no longer subject to mandatory ETH holdings to provide liquidity to the protocol. Paired with a newly deployed price oracle and the capacity for Flash Swaps to take advantage of arbitrage, it’s evident that Uniswap is gearing up for its biggest year to date.
Launch Signals
What’s most interesting about this deployment is seeing which liquidity pools are gaining the most traction on the first day of launch. While it’s intuitive that pools with the most liquidity on V1 are likely to retain a significant standing following migration, we’re also seeing stablecoin pools quickly starting to take form. According to uniswap.info, the DAI <> USDC pool is quickly garnering traction along with more obscure trading pairs like ETH <> DONUTS.
Similarly, more niche DeFi pools are being created, including a cUSDC <> cDAI pool which allows users to swap interest-earning stablecoins wrapped via Compound.
With the ability to create a new pool for any two assets, there comes a strong degree of creativity (and potential error) for users to spin up a new liquidity pool and set the price between those two assets.
Similarly, with Uniswap V2 still aggregating liquidity from its V1 counterpart, it’s worth noting that in the immediate short term, many trading pairs are currently better suited for V1 – as indicated at the bottom of the trade on the V2 interface. While we expect this to quickly change, it is interesting to watch this decentralized liquidity migration play out first hand.
If one thing is for sure, there are an endless number of products utilizing Uniswap V1 in some aspect of their cycle. With this migration, we expect to see a lot of updates from those who are incentivizing liquidity provisions, with projects like Synthetix and their sETH/ETH incentives being the first that comes to mind.
For those fearful of change, it’s worth noting that V1 will continue to operate exactly as it has in the past and that migrating to V2 is by no means mandatory.
Regardless, the launch of V2 goes to show that DeFi innovation only continues to proliferate, and with it, we can expect the wider DeFi ecosystem to blossom in the coming year.
Next, we’ll be keeping an eye on the growing DEX landscape, namely seeing how products like Balancer and their new governance token compete with the fan-favorite Uniswap product in the coming months.
To stay up on all things Uniswap, follow them on Twitter or join the conversation on Discord.
For those looking to plug into V2 and it’s exciting new features, be sure to check out the contracts on Github here.
Cooper is the Editor of DeFi Rate. He is an ambassador of Set Protocol and an active contributor to MetaCartel where he seeks to find emerging consumer-facing applications that propel the Ethereum ecosystem. He often works with projects as the Director of Fitzner Blockchain Consulting where he coauthors the weekly publication Token Tuesdays.
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