Buy Uniswap (UNI): value and price trends

What is Uniswap (UNI)

Uniswap was the first, and is still one of the most important, decentralised exchanges (DEX) in existence. A DEX allows crypto-assets to be traded without the direct oversight of a central company: there is no intermediary holding the funds or managing orders, but everything happens through smart contracts and automatic algorithms.

Uniswap’s success was such that, as early as October 2020, it surpassed at certain stages the trading volumes of major centralised exchanges. UNI is the protocol’s native token and consistently ranks among the most capitalised crypto-assets on the market.

How it works: the AMM model

Uniswap works with the automated market maker (AMM) model: trades do not happen directly between buyers and sellers, but against liquidity “pools” funded by users. Those who deposit their tokens in a pool provide liquidity and, in return, receive a share of the fees generated by the trades.

Over time the protocol has been upgraded across several versions, each designed to make liquidity more efficient and reduce costs for users. This model paved the way for much of the decentralised finance (DeFi) built afterwards.

The UNI token and governance

UNI is mainly a governance token: it allows holders to vote on proposals about the protocol’s future, from managing the community’s funds to technical parameters. Among the most debated topics is the idea of activating a mechanism to distribute part of the protocol’s fees to UNI holders.

It should be stressed that holding UNI does not in itself guarantee any return: it is a tool for participating in decisions, not a promise of profit.

Origins and what to consider

Uniswap was created in 2018 by Hayden Adams, a former Siemens programmer, and has become one of the reference infrastructures of the entire DeFi ecosystem.

Like all crypto-assets, UNI has had a highly volatile price trend. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.