Uniswap is eight years old, and Hayden has trotted out a bunch of impressive numbers: DEXs account for around 40% of all trading volume, and Uniswap’s spot volume is equivalent to 31% of Binance’s, ranking second in the industry.
The product won. I’ll give it that.
But what about the people holding the token? In the 2020 airdrop, each of 251,534 wallets that had used Uniswap received at least 400 UNI. At the May 2021 peak of $44.92, 400 tokens were worth about $17,970. UNI is now just over $7, so those same 400 tokens are worth around $2,800—down more than 80% from the peak.
That’s the most frustrating thing about DeFi: the protocol becomes the industry’s second biggest, but the token price has little to do with it. Traders generate the volume, most of the fees go into LPs’ pockets, the birthday stats are reported by the founder himself, and what token holders mainly get is sentiment.
And as for that claim that its “share against Binance went from 0 to 31%”—the post doesn’t say a word about how that was calculated, which chains were included, or whether wash-trading pools were excluded. The accounts reposting it, meanwhile, are getting more excited by the minute.
To the OGs who got the airdrop, didn’t sell at the top, and held on until today: you really do have conviction—and you really did lose money.
#Uniswap #DeFi
The product won. I’ll give it that.
But what about the people holding the token? In the 2020 airdrop, each of 251,534 wallets that had used Uniswap received at least 400 UNI. At the May 2021 peak of $44.92, 400 tokens were worth about $17,970. UNI is now just over $7, so those same 400 tokens are worth around $2,800—down more than 80% from the peak.
That’s the most frustrating thing about DeFi: the protocol becomes the industry’s second biggest, but the token price has little to do with it. Traders generate the volume, most of the fees go into LPs’ pockets, the birthday stats are reported by the founder himself, and what token holders mainly get is sentiment.
And as for that claim that its “share against Binance went from 0 to 31%”—the post doesn’t say a word about how that was calculated, which chains were included, or whether wash-trading pools were excluded. The accounts reposting it, meanwhile, are getting more excited by the minute.
To the OGs who got the airdrop, didn’t sell at the top, and held on until today: you really do have conviction—and you really did lose money.
#Uniswap #DeFi
