Uniswap is approaching a crucial junction as the leading DEX is faced with a gripping situation.
After usurping Curve as the most used decentralized exchange, the platform has been going through a barren run.
Especially in July, Uniswap recorded a new low as trading volume stumbled to just $37.8 billion which is the lowest in 2022.
Additionally, July’s numbers are a long-distant $24.8 billion afar from the yearly high of $62.7 billion in May.
Source: Dune
Don’t leave just yet
Interestingly, Uniswap has been busy recently after climbing up the charts on its market capitalization.
It has reflected well on the UNI token’s growth this week. However, the token suffered a slight dip as other major cryptocurrencies noted a decline.
UNI, at press time, was down 9.4% over the last day which has essentially diminished all the weekly gains. At the time of writing, it was trading at just above $8.5.
Despite the recent blemishes, whales have readily collected UNI holdings of late.
According to WhaleStats, UNI is now among the top holdings of the 500 biggest Ethereum whales in the past 24 hours. This is a welcome addition for Uniswap which has already seen margins dry up recently.
There is, however, a piece of big news for the Uniswap community as their latest proposal is underway.
In early August, the community proposed the launch of the “Uniswap Foundation (UF).”
According to the release, the “Foundation’s mission will be to support the decentralized growth and sustainability of the Uniswap Protocol and its supporting ecosystem and community.”
The community sees the UF as a natural successor to the Uniswap Grants Program (UGP). The UF will aim to fix the gaps in the UGP which include friction in governance and increasing difficulty to navigate the ecosystem.
Truly decentralized?
Uniswap Labs COO Mary-Catherine Lader provided her insights into Uniswap and DeFi in her recent interview.
Appreciating the decentralization factor she said,
“If Uniswap Labs disappeared, and if all of our team went and did other things, then the underlying protocol will continue to exist. That’s the part of what makes the protocol decentralized, is that this is all happening transparently in the open and [through] a governance forum where all the people who would benefit or perhaps be affected by it can weigh in.”
