Uniswap's governance token launched Wednesday night, UNI, appeared to be on a roller coaster for the past 24 hours. However, despite price volatility, UNI's total market capitalization could make its automated market maker (AMM) one of the most valuable decentralized finance (DeFi) projects in the coming years.
UNI token
With 1 billion tokens in circulation and a current market price of $ 3,50, the project has an implied market value of $ 3,7 billion, according to data from CoinGecko. DeFi Pulse reports that there are currently $ 829,7 million worth of crypto assets committed to Uniswap.
Since its launch, UNI prices have peaked at $ 4,08 before falling back to around $ 3 after previous Uniswap users claimed their UNI tokens. As a venture-backed project, Uniswap raised $ 11 million in a Series A loan led by Andreessen Horowitz, along with Union Square Ventures, Paradigm and a few other major funds in early August, and sold shares of Universal. Navigation Inc. (the company behind the protocol) to its Investors.
Approximately 178 million UNI (approximately 17,8% of the total offer) will be awarded to investors with a four-year vesting cycle which, at the current price, is worth approximately $ 600 million. More than 50.000 addresses own UNI at press time, including the creator of competitor SushiSwap, Chef Nomi. The Uniswap token came just a week after SushiSwap moved over $ 800 million in crypto assets from Uniswap to get its competing AMM going.
Reactions to UNI
Andre Cronje, the developer of the DeFi Yearn.Finance protocol, looks more like Uniswap is responding defensively to the SushiSwap threat. Cronje's project governance token, YFI, is trading at $ 32.038 at press time, a staggering amount considering its initial trading price of around $ 32, giving the entire project an estimated valuation of 961,7 million. $.
Unlike UNI, YFI was not released to project team members or investors, which means that it is fully governed by users. Total value locked in Uniswap increased 7,22% in the past 24 hours, while SushiSwap and Yearn.Finance data fell 14,28% and 14,48% to $ 631,9 million and $ 661,7. $ XNUMX million, respectively, according to DeFi Pulse.
Major centralized exchanges, including Binance and Coinbase Pro, have added UNI to their lists within hours of its launch. OKEx has even gone so far as to offer a full set of trading tools to cover UNI including spot trading, margin, swap trading and coin-marginated perpetual swap. Coinbase is among the investors in the project.
