Uniswap

Uniswap is a decentralized, automated market making protocol consisting of a set of smart contracts running on the Ethereum blockchain.

It provides peer-to-peer market-making and swapping of ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

In 2016, the concept of an on-chain automated market maker was theorized by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. The concept was different from decentralized exchanges in that it doesn’t use a traditional order book. Hayden Adams received multiple grants from the Ethereum Foundation and others to create a functional exchange and on November 2, 2018, Hayden publicly announced Uniswap and launched it on the Ethereum blockchain.

Uniswap’s UNI governance token launched on September 16, 2020.

Uniswap has devised a protocol that relies on liquidity providers creating liquidity pools which then provide liquidity across the platform, allowing users to seamlessly swap between essentially any ERC-20 tokens – all without the need for an order book.

Uniswap incentivizes its users to maintain the liquidity of the exchange, providing portions of the transaction fees and newly minted UNI tokens to those who participate.