DeFi: Can Uniswap continue to dominate the market?

Uniswap, what is it?

Uniswap was launched in 2018 by American engineer Hayden Adams. Its function is simple: to enable the exchange of digital assets in a decentralised manner without the intervention of a third party, in other words not like a traditional stock exchange.

On Nasdaq, it is the eponymous company that ensures the proper execution of exchanges. On Uniswap, it's the technology itself that does it 💡.

Uniswap's major innovation is based on its model dubbed the Automated Market Maker (AMM). Instead of using traditional order books, Uniswap allows users themselves to provide liquidity to trading pools by adding funds to smart contracts (which automatically execute a trade when a pre-specified condition is met).

These liquidity pools are made up of asset pairs, for example, ether (ETH) and another token ERC-20 (the token of a project developed on Ethereum). In exchange for their contribution, liquidity providers receive the fees paid by traders.