Uniswap

Bitcoin bulls’ run toward $45K could produce tailwinds for UNI, OP, TIA and STX

Bitcoin bulls could make a strong push to get BTC through the $45,000 resistance this week. Will UNI, OP, TIA and STX follow?

The S&P 500 Index (SPX) achieved its highest close of the year last week, and Bitcoin (BTC) also hit a new 52-week high, indicating that risky assets remain strong going into the final few days of the year. 

Some analysts believe Bitcoin is done with its rally in the short term and may roll over. Popular analyst and social media commentator Matthew Hyland cautioned in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that a drop in Bitcoin’s dominance below 51.81% could signal that the uptrend has ended “along with a likely top put in.”

Usually, the first leg of the rally of a new bull market is driven by the leaders, but after a significant move, profit-booking sets in and traders start to look at alternative opportunities. Although Bitcoin has not rolled over, several altcoins have started to move higher, signaling a potential shift in interest.

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Uniswap launches iOS mobile wallet in select countries

The decentralized exchange had previously stated that Apple was not allowing the app to be listed on the App Store.

Decentralized exchange Uniswap has launched a mobile wallet that features built-in support for the exchange, according to an April 13 announcement from the company. The app is available for iOS devices in select countries and can be found in Apple’s App Store.

The Uniswap team complained on March 3 that Apple was blocking the app from its stores. But in this new announcement, the team said that its wallet is “out of Apple jail and now live in most countries.”

Uniswap said the new wallet allows users to swap tokens on the Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism networks. It can also be connected to any Ethereum app through WalletConnect. Users can back up their accounts by either writing down their seed phrase or encrypting their key vaults with a password and storing them in iCloud.

The Uniswap app also allows users to see detailed information about nonfungible tokens (NFTs) stored within it, including their floor prices and collections.

Related: Uniswap funds DAO incentive improvement project

To make Web3 onboarding easier, several wallet developers have offered mobile apps with built-in decentralized finance (DeFi) functions over the past few years. In 2020, Argent integrated MakerDAO and other DeFi protocols with its wallet app, and 1inch provided similar integrations in 2021.

Uniswap is Ethereum’s largest decentralized crypto exchange, with over $3.4 billion of total value locked inside of its smart contracts, according to its own analytics page.

Cointelegraph reached out to the Uniswap team for a list of countries where the app is available but was unable to get a response by the time of publication.

Uniswap funds DAO incentive improvement project

The project will provide at least three proposals for Uniswap incentive mechanisms by June.

Financial modeling platform Gauntlet has been awarded a grant from Uniswap Foundation to improve DAO incentive mechanisms, according to an announcement from Gauntlet.

Gauntlet describes itself as a “crypto-native financial risk management solutions provider.” It uses economic models to optimize fees and rewards for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, according to the announcement. The company is creating a new division, Gauntlet Applied Research, which will specifically focus on problems related to the growing decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) ecosystem.

In its announcement, Gauntlet said that it would provide three pieces of research to UniswapDAO. The first will be a quantitative framework that the DAO can use to evaluate the success or failure of the Uniswap protocol. The second will be an analysis of trader and liquidity provider behavior, and the third will be at least three proposals for incentive mechanisms to allow the DAO to achieve its goals.

Gauntlet said that it expects all three of these deliverables to be completed by June.

Devin Walsh, executive director of Uniswap Foundation, expressed hope that Gauntlet’s research will help to improve not only the Uniswap protocol but also the crypto ecosystem as a whole, stating:

“One of our goals at the Uniswap Foundation is to build long-term relationships with the most talented and values-aligned teams in the space, and work with them on the most complex and interesting questions facing the Uniswap Protocol.”

DAOs have become a basic feature of the crypto economy over the past few years, with DAO analytics provider DeepDAO currently listing over 2,300 existing DAOs. Most DAOs are governed by tokenholders, who are allowed to vote directly on the blockchain to support or reject proposals for changes to a protocol.

However, token-based DAO governance has also been criticized by some industry experts, including Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin, who stated that this system could lead to “vote-buying” and “outright attacks.”

Over the past few months, some DAOs have attempted to provide better incentive mechanisms in the hopes of preventing vote-buying attacks. For example, MakerDAO passed a constitution on March 27 to formalize governance processes and provide checks and balances to prevent concentration of power.

Conflux proposes deploying Uniswap v3, setting up $2M liquidity pool for CFX pairs

Following the expiration of the Uniswap v3 code license on April 1, Conflux seeks to deploy the decentralized crypto trading protocol on its network.

Conflux, a regulatory-compliant public blockchain based in China, seeks to deploy Uniswap v3 on its network, according to a proposal on Uniswap’s governance forum on April 7. The move comes days after the Uniswap v3 code license expired, enabling developers to fork the protocol and deploy their own decentralized exchange.

As per the proposal, the deployment would provide “access to millions of potential new users, particularly in the Chinese and Asian markets.” According to Conflux, the blockchain experienced a spike in traffic in the first quarter of 2023. The network has a market capitalization of nearly $1 billion and has $45 million in total value locked on-chain. 

“Currently, 84% of worldwide blockchain applications are submitted in China. Compared to the UK and the US, 11% and 14%. […] This shows that China is one of the most mature markets in Web3, and exposure is important for all projects,” said Conflux in the proposal.

Regulatory crackdowns in the United States and Europe would also benefit the crypto industry’s growth in Asian markets, claimed Conflux, noting that over 80 crypto companies are planning to establish an office in Hong Kong, providing a crypto bridge to mainland China.

Ambre Soubiran, CEO of institutional crypto market data provider Kaiko, holds a similar view. “The U.S. being more stringent these days than ever on crypto and Hong Kong regulating in a more favorable way […] is going to clearly shift the center of gravity of crypto assets trading and investments more towards Hong Kong,” he noted in a recent interview.

Aside from potential market reach, incentives offered for projects building on top of Uniswap v3 on the Conflux Network are the creation of liquidity pools for CFX token trading pairs — specifically, CFX-USDT, CFX-BTC, and CFX-ETH. These liquidity pools would be worth $2 million and locked for two years. The Conflux Foundation would also provide $1 million in “liquidity incentives.”

Conflux is a layer-1 blockchain operating using a hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake mechanism. In a recent development, the network announced a partnership with China Telecom to develop a blockchain SIM (BSIM) card. The BSIM will offer a secure place to store digital private keys and will be able to call upon the said signature to transfer money to other users. In addition, a “one-click direct check” functionality will allow users to check for transaction information and status progress in real time.

Magazine: Zhu Su’s exchange did $13.64 in volume akshually, Huobi in crisis – Asia Express

Uniswap v3 code free to fork as BSL expires

The license expiration marks a significant event within the DeFi ecosystem, enabling developers to deploy their own decentralized exchange.

Developers are now allowed to fork Uniswap v3 protocol as its Business Source License (BSL) expired on April 1, shows protocol documentation. The expiration was a much-anticipated event within the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, enabling developers to deploy their own decentralized exchange (DEX). 

The BSL license lasts for a limited period before becoming completely open source. The purpose is to protect the author’s right to profit from their creations. Uniswap v3’s license was released in 2021 for two years, preventing its code from commercial use. A new license called a “General Public License” now applies to the protocol.

To fork the code, developers will be required to use an “Additional Use Grant” — a production exemption meant to accommodate both the needs of open-source and commercial developers.

Screenshot: Uniswap V3 core smart contracts repository on GitHub. Source: GitHub

Uniswap is a widely utilized decentralized exchange — considered the biggest automated market maker in DeFi space — providing a platform where token creators, traders and liquidity providers swap tokens. Its native Uniswap (UNI) token is a popular way for investors to gain exposure to the DeFi market.

In May 2021, shortly after being launched, Uniswap v3 surpassed Bitcoin in terms of daily fee generation, Cointelegraph reported. Data from Cryptofees showed that Uniswap v3 was generating $4.5 million in daily fees at that time, while Bitcoin generated $3.7 million.

Uniswap v3 Total Value Locked. Source DefiLlama.

Earlier this month, Unisawp officially went live on the BNB Chain — Binance’s smart contract blockchain — after more than 55 million UNI tokenholders voted in favor of a governance proposal by 0x Plasma Labs to deploy the protocol on the BNB Chain. Through the move, Uniswap users can access BNB Chain’s ecosystem for trading and swapping tokens. The integration also allowed Uniswap to tap into a liquidity pool with BNB Chain’s DeFi developer community.

Magazine: DeFi abandons Ponzi farms for ‘real yield’

Gnosis launches Hashi bridge aggregator to help prevent hacks

Bridge protocols LayerZero, Celer, Wormhole, LiFi, and others have already committed to implementing the new protocol.

Gnosis, the team behind Gnosis Safe multi-sig and Gnosis Chain, has launched a hash oracle aggregator for blockchain bridges, according to an announcement from the company. In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Gnosis CEO Martin Köppelmann stated that the new aggregator should make bridges more secure by requiring more than one bridge to validate a withdrawal before it can be confirmed.

Multiple bridge protocols have already committed to integrating with Hashi, including Succinct Labs, DendrETH, ZK Collective, Connext, Celer, LayerZero, Axiom, Wormhole and LI.FI, according to the announcement. 

Over $2 billion was stolen from bridges in 2021 and 2022, according to a report by Token Terminal. Bugs in the code have caused some bridge hacks, whereas others have been caused by the attacker taking over a multi-sig governance wallet.

According to Köppelmann, Hashi can provide the first step towards making these cross-chain transactions more secure throughout the blockchain ecosystem, by requiring withdrawals to be validated by multiple bridges instead of just one:

“Hashi is about essentially creating this aggregator that can use different bridges and basically say they all need to agree to the same message […] If they do, great, then we can be really, really certain that this message is actually real and if they disagree […] Then we know we need to escalate to governance, we need to halt the bridge.”

Köppelmann also emphasized that Hashi helps to prevent multi-sig governance attacks because it allows a protocol to prevent governance from intervening if there is no disagreement between individual bridges.

“Here you can have this nice tradeoff where you say ‘the governance is not allowed to do anything,’ so it cannot interfere with the system unless there is explicitly a conflict or a bug,” he explained. “So as soon as those bridges that are supposed to report on the same thing […] Disagree, well then governance is allowed to interfere, otherwise governance has no role. That’s Hashi.”

Related: Uniswap’s BNB deployment should use multiple bridges, claims LIFI CEO

Hashi is open source and available on GitHub.

The idea of a multi-bridge aggregator rose to prominence during the Uniswap bridge debate in December and January. Although Wormhole was ultimately chosen as Uniswap’s bridge provider, representatives from Celer, LiFi, and deBridge, as well as other participants concluded that a multi-bridge aggregation solution needed to be implemented going forward.

USDC investor shells out $2M to receive $0.05 USDT trying to evade crash

While the crypto market responded with a massive sell-off, not all USDC investors were lucky enough to walk away with their funds amid the uncertainty.

Soon after Circle revealed that Silicon Valley Bank did not transfer $3.3 billion of its USD Coin (USDC) reserves, the market responded with a massive sell-off — depegging the stablecoin from the U.S. dollar. However, not all investors were lucky enough to walk away with their funds amid the uncertainty.

To cut losses, investors started selling their USDC tokens in exchange for other stablecoins, such as Tether (USDT). Unfortunately, one transaction highlighted by Crypto Twitter member, BowTiedPickle, shows a USDC investor paid over $2 million to receive $0.05 of USDT.

On-chain investigations revealed that the user had stored the assets in a liquidity pool (LP) — a popular method to earn passive income in cryptocurrencies. The user could have sold his LP tokens for USDT for a 6% slippage. However, they chose to go for a “questionable ” method. As explained by BowTiedPickle:

“The unfortunate soul used the KyberSwap aggregation router to dump a large clip of 3CRV (DAI/USDC/USDT) LP token into USDT.”

Given the race against time, the USDC investor forgot to set his slippage, which allows investors to set an exact price of the token for the transaction to go through. He explained the nuances that eventually led to a maximal extractable value (MEV) bot netting $2.045 million in profit after paying $45 in gas and $39,000 in MEV bribes.

Crypto Twitter member BowTiedPickle provides an overview of how a USDC investor lost over $2 million. Source: Twitter

The above episode highlights how human error can result in a permanent loss of funds. While cashing out USDC for fiat or other cryptocurrencies, Cointelegraph advises investors to recheck the information and methods of transfer.

Related: Breaking: Circle discloses $3.3B tied up at Silicon Valley Bank

Soon after Circle confirmed that $3.3 billion was stuck with Silicon Valley Bank, a resultant sell-off of USDC caused the stablecoin’s value to drop below its $1 peg.

At the time of writing, USDC has lost over 10% of its value and trades at $0.8774.

Uniswap wants to launch mobile wallet, but Apple won’t greenlight its launch

Despite having its first build approved in October, Uniswap Labs is facing issues with Apple’s App Store regarding its mobile wallet.

Uniswap Labs has announced plans to release a new self-custodial mobile wallet that will offer users the ability to swap on layer-1 or layer-2 networks without having to switch blockchain.

According to Uniswap Labs, the wallet will allow users to check price charts and search for any token across various networks, including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism. To ensure maximum security, Uniswap Labs worked with Trail of Bits for the audit of the wallet. Additionally, the seed phrases and private keys of both imported and newly created wallets will be encrypted and stored on devices using Apple’s Secure Enclave, which is excluded from device backups. Uniswap also shared that users will be able to manually store their seed phrases with a paper copy or encrypt and store it on iCloud.

Despite having its first build approved in October, Uniswap Labs has faced issues with Apple’s App Store regarding its mobile wallet. Although other self-custody swapping wallets have been approved, the final build of Uniswap’s mobile wallet was rejected by Apple just a few days before its planned December 2022 launch. 

Uniswap Labs shared that it responded to Apple’s concerns, answered all its questions, and reiterated that it was compliant with its guidelines. However, Apple has still not greenlit the launch, and Uniswap Labs remains in limbo. As a result, it is offering early access to a few thousand Testflight users while waiting for Apple to approve the launch. 

Uniswap notes in its announcement:

“Apple won’t green-light our launch and we don’t know why. We are stuck in limbo.”

Related: Uniswap DAO debate shows devs still struggle to secure cross-chain bridges

On Feb 6, Cointelegraph reported that members of the Uniswap community voted in favor of deploying Uniswap v3 on Boba Network’s layer-2 protocol on Ethereum, which means that the Boba Network will be the sixth chain to deploy Uniswap v3. The move was backed by several entities, such as GFX Labs, Blockchain at Michigan, Gauntlet and ConsenSys.

Web3 community unites for Turkish–Syrian earthquake victims: Finance Redefined

The Web3 ecosystem came together to offer all possible help and aid to the victims of the Turkish-Syrian earthquake — one of the worst natural disasters in recent history.

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week.

In the aftermath of a deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake in southeastern Turkey, the Web3 community has come together to raise awareness and aid for disaster victims.

Stablecoins could prove to be a critical factor in larger DeFi adoption, says Aave founder Stani Kulechov. According to the Aave executive, building the “payment layer,” which involves stablecoins, can potentially hook regular people into the space, eventually introducing them into DeFi. On the other hand, S&P Global Ratings believe DeFi protocols can attract institutional interest if they get securitization right.

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) used 15 million Uniswap (UNI) tokens to vote against the deployment of Uniswap v3 on BNB Chain using the Wormhole bridge. Web3 developer ConsenSys has cast 7.03 million UNI votes in favor of its deployment on BNB Chain.

The DeFi market broke its four-week bullish streak after news about Kraken settling with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and winding down its crypto staking services. The settlement means U.S.-based exchanges must shut down their staking services, which has come at a critical time for Ethereum, as the upcoming Shanghai upgrade will allow Ether (ETH) stakers to withdraw their staked ETH.

The Web3 community responds to Turkish–Syrian earthquake tragedy

A massive earthquake hit southeastern Turkey along the border with Syria on Feb. 6, which has so far caused the death of more than 18,000 people. The quake registered a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale, which is internationally categorized as a “major” earthquake, and occurred along 100 kilometers of the fault line.

Infrastructure in the area suffered significant damage, resulting in a deadly cross-border humanitarian disaster. However, the world was quick to respond. Across the internet and various social media platforms, people have been gathering funds for local and international aid organizations to provide relief to those in the affected areas.

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Stablecoin adoption could lead to DeFi growth, says Aave founder

Stani Kulechov, the founder of the DeFi protocol Aave, highlighted several issues within the DeFi space at the StarkWare Sessions 2023, held at The Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv, Israel.

In a fireside chat titled “DeFi: Resilience in the Face of Global Uncertainty,” Kulechov and Cointelegraph’s managing editor Alex Cohen discussed various topics, including DeFi’s risks compared to traditional finance and how stablecoins can lead to more DeFi adoption.

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DeFi securitization of real-world assets poses credit risks, opportunities: S&P

DeFi’s use case in traditional finance could grow in the coming years as new protocols attempt to support the securitization of real-world assets, according to a new research report from credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings.

The financing of real-world assets will likely be a key focus area for DeFi protocols moving forward, S&P said in a report titled “DeFi Protocols For Securitization: A Credit Risk Perspective.” Although the industry is still in its nascent stages, S&P highlighted several benefits DeFi could bring to securitization, including reducing transaction costs, improving transparency on asset pools, reducing counterparty risks and enabling faster payment settlement for investors.

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a16z votes against proposal to deploy Uniswap v3 on BNB Chain

Venture capital firm a16z voted against a final proposal to deploy Uniswap v3 on the BNB Chain using the Wormhole bridge, the Uniswap DAO forum shows.

The governance proposal to deploy the latest Uniswap iteration on the BNB Chain was submitted on Feb. 2 by 0xPlasma Labs on behalf of the Uniswap Community after it passed a temperature check with 20 million (80.28%) votes for yes, and 4.9 million (19.72%) votes for no. On Feb. 5, the venture firm used 15 million of its UNI holdings to vote against the move.

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ConsenSys adds 7.03M votes to Uniswap BNB Chain migration proposal amid VC battle

Web3 infrastructure developer ConsenSys, the maker of the popular MetaMask digital wallet, cast 7.03 million votes in favor of a proposal that would see decentralized exchange Uniswap’s v3 protocol deployed on BNB Chain, according to data from Tally.

As Cointelegraph reported, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz cast a vote against the proposal. A16z, which reportedly holds 55 million UNI tokens, voted 15 million UNI against the move due to its reliance on the Wormhole bridge. The VC firm instead supported using LayerZero as the interoperability protocol. LayerZero Labs is part of a16z’s portfolio and raised $135 million in a funding round in March 2022, with a $1 billion valuation.

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DeFi market overview

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total market value fell back to $40 billion this past week, trading at about $40.1 billion at the time of writing. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bearish week, with most of the tokens bleeding this past week, registering double-digit losses on the weekly charts.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

ConsenSys adds 7.03M votes to Uniswap BNB Chain migration proposal amid VC battle

Web3 developer ConsenSys has cast 7.03 million UNI votes in favor of Uniswap v3 deploying on BNB Chain.

Web3 infrastructure developer ConsenSys, the maker of the popular MetaMask digital wallet, has cast 7.03 million votes in favor of a proposal that would see decentralized exchange Uniswap’s v3 protocol deployed on BNB Chain, according to data from Tally. The votes are denominated by the number of underlying UNI owned by ConsenSys, which is worth an estimated $47.5 million. At the time of writing, 77.56% of participants were in favor of the proposal, with 22.07% against it. The week-long voting process will close on Feb. 10.

As Cointelegraph previously reported, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz cast a vote against the proposal. A16z, which reportedly holds 55 million UNI tokens, voted 15 million UNI against the move due to its reliance on the Wormhole bridge and instead supported using LayerZero as the interoperability protocol. LayerZero Labs is part of a16z’s portfolio and raised $135 million in a funding round in March, with a $1 billion valuation.

In January 2022, Wormhole suffered a major exploit resulting in the loss of $321 million worth of Wrapped Ether (wETH) tokens. Since then, Wormhole is now secured by 19 validators, has been audited 25-plus times by leading firms and has passed all security assessments.

A16z’s vote was in part controversial within the crypto community due to a voter turnout of less than 7% for the ongoing proposal, which still passed the necessary quorum. As a result, a16z was able to disproportionally influence the voting process with just 15 million UNI out of 762 million in UNI in circulation. Critics say that such measures disrupt the decentralized nature of Uniswap by concentrating voting power in VCs.