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Can Banks Survive the Blockchain Revolution?

Deep dive into current and historic currency issues

Have you noticed that an increasing number of online businesses are stating that Bitcoin will be accepted as payment? What about certain countries like El Salvador making Bitcoin legal tender?

I know you may be surprised that Bitcoin ATMs are springing from the nooks and crannies of some countries. Have you also observed the ongoing, increasing transition from a cash to a cashless society?

This is the power of cryptocurrency, a new generation of internet-based currencies that have increased substantially in popularity and use in recent years.

With the recent issues surrounding banking with SVB is crypto currency the solution?

What is Cryptocurrency?

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency built on blockchain technology, protected by encryption, making counterfeiting virtually impossible. Cryptocurrencies are distinguished because any central authority does not issue them, making them potentially impervious to a national government or, for that matter, any centralized intervention or manipulation.

If paper money is a physical currency powered by the Central banks, consider Cryptocurrencies as simply virtual “currencies” powered by blockchain technology.

You may wonder where cryptocurrencies originate from and what gives them tangible value?

A cryptocurrency is created when a “miner” solves a complex computational challenge to confirm a transaction and add it to the blockchain ledger. However, many cryptocurrencies have a limit or maximum supply (such as Bitcoin, which has a limit of 21 million Bitcoins).

Like any other currency, cryptocurrencies values are based and dependent upon the size of the community’s and people’s involvement and adoption likewise (such as demand, scarcity, or the coin’s utility “use cases”). Ultimately, the formal agreement to use a particular cryptocurrency as money by the people to exchange goods and services gives it a true value.

What is Blockchain?

A blockchain is a decentralized ledger that records all peer-to-peer transactions. Blockchain users can easily confirm their transactions without requiring any centralized authorities to approve using this technology. Fund transfers, trade settlements, voting, and various other transactions are all possible applications facilitated via the power of Blockchain technology.

Cryptocurrencies are only made possible by harnessing the immense power of Blockchain technology.

Cryptocurrency has brought about a sea-change in the way people conduct business and associated transactions. Suddenly, currency can be traded outside traditional banks in the blink of an eye using just a cell phone, tablet or laptop computer.

As a result, people no longer have to go to or utilize a traditional bank if they need money. Peer-to-peer networks, particularly those based on cryptocurrency, are becoming more popular every day. Those who might otherwise be turned down by banks now have another viable and efficient option for funds. Not just another option, but a far better alternative for a wide variety of reasons.

Traditional banks are hesitant to embrace Crypto, even though the world of cryptocurrency is gradually developing and gaining popularity. Why? Because banks believe that the perceived risks outweigh the potential benefits and are thus considered a danger to their industry.

Are these cryptocurrencies posing a threat to existing banks? The fundamental answer is a resounding “YES”.

At a recent Barclays conference, according to Bloomberg, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that Bitcoin is worse than the most famous asset bubble in history. The cryptocurrency is “worse than tulip bulbs” and even added that “it’s a fraud” that would eventually “blow up”. This rally “won’t end well,” Dimon said.

Not only that, the former PayPal CEO Bill Haris called Bitcoin a “scam”. There have been many attacks from the banks and, likewise, severe warnings about cryptocurrencies and Blockchain as a whole.

On the other hand, according to many cryptocurrency enthusiasts, banks are also evil and not to be trusted.

But why are the banks afraid of cryptos and, critically, how do cryptos affect banks, you may wonder?

When it comes to payment services (one of the traditional banks’ core functions), cryptocurrency already far outperforms banks. For example, cryptocurrency exchanges charge much lower transaction fees. Simply put, there are little to no commissions to pay when sending or receiving Crypto. That said, a community must spend a small amount of cryptocurrency to keep the blockchain network running effectively.

Despite the banks’ pessimism, Blockchain decentralized ledger technology (DLT), and cryptocurrencies will replace or change aspects of the banking sector continues to be debated.

But notably, banks may someday go into extinction if they do not adopt Blockchain and cryptocurrencies in general.

Why and how could this incredible situation occur?

The introduction of DeFi (decentralized finance) to the Crypto Industry is the prime disrupter that is single-handedly creating severe panic within the banking system.

DeFi stands for “decentralized finance,” a catchall word for several cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based financial applications to disrupt financial intermediaries.

DeFi is inspired by Blockchain, which underpins the digital currency Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, ensuring that a single, central source does not control it. This is significant because centralized systems can slow down and complicate transactions while giving users less direct control over their funds.

Currently, the TVL (Total Vault Locked) according to defipulse.com is $120bn, Bitcoin alone has a market cap of more than a trillion dollars, Ethereum, the second most popular cryptocurrency, exceeds $500 billion, and so on.

On Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, $78 billion is traded daily. Are you aware? $78 billion daily on a single crypto exchange? 

Shocking!

This means that a truly massive amount of money was moved away from the traditional banking system and invested instead into cryptocurrencies. And the volume of money invested in these ‘tokens’ continues growing each day rapidly.

Crypto is not just an idea or abstract concept; but instead, it is a powerful, global movement. As a result, banks could very well diminish over time if care is not taken and eventually become obsolete.

Have you not seen the PayPal team integrating Crypto into PayPal? That shows you the banks need to adopt Crypto and Blockchain to save them from extinction.

So, what precisely do traditional banks need to do so that they remain relevant and prominent in the advent of Crypto?

As we’ve mentioned and stated clearly, Crypto has a competitive edge over banks. However, the following are some promises delivered by Crypto and Blockchain in which, if the banking sector adopts them, may very well save traditional banks from collapsing.

Transparency

Because consumers perform activities on a public ledger, Blockchain makes the financial industry and transactions much more transparent than banks do. This transparency further reveals inefficiencies, such as fraud, allowing financial organizations to prevent issues, solve problems more quickly and ultimately decrease risk.

Security

The Internet remains a breeding ground for scammers as customers become more engaged in transacting online business. This concern, however, has largely been alleviated, thanks to blockchain technology.

Traditional banking payments, transactions, and money transfers are slower and less traceable, exposing the risk of theft and money loss far more than those performed on the Blockchain.

When data travels via various financial centralized intermediaries, it may be intercepted by a nefarious third-party, increasing the risk of fraud. With the help of Blockchain’s cryptographic methods, there is more robust security, and loopholes are more easily detected and blocked.

Low Transactional Costs

Blockchain allows people, mainly the everyday user, to benefit from decreased transactional costs much lower than traditional banks. More and more people are migrating away from banks to avoid their higher fees.

Using Blockchain technology, one can transfer $1000 from the USA to anywhere globally with just a $1 transaction fee within a few seconds. Amazing and cost-effective? Oh yes!

Eliminate Identity Theft

Cryptocurrency exchanges outperform banks on this issue also. How? A person merely sends the money they want to a merchant or a seller with a guaranteed, secured individual identity, nothing more.

There is zero sharing of personal information, no account name, no address, and no zip code. Thus, there is no risk of identity theft.

Eliminate Fraud

Cryptocurrency is also by its very nature fraud-proof, as it cannot be tampered with by a central government or any other third party. There is no way to counterfeit Crypto because it is both digital and decentralized, unlike conventional currency. Similarly, unlike chargebacks of credit card purchases, the sender cannot reverse the transaction.

Ubiquitous Access

Many people worldwide may not even have access to modern banking institutions, but they do have access to the Internet and mobile phones, allowing them to open a cryptocurrency wallet. Anyone who cannot use regular exchange methods can participate in the crypto economy in this manner, which is especially significant for people in developing countries as our world continues to become more globalized.

Eliminate “Middleman”

Consider when you’re buying a house, a car, or real estate. It’s usually a lengthy procedure, including lawyers, notaries, and other professionals.

Also, consider opening a bank account, the unnecessary documentation such as passports, proof of address, tax identification number, many signatory pamphlets to be signed and so on, are always tasking and a lengthy procedure.

On the other hand, contracts made using cryptocurrencies can be created without the use of third parties and reams of unnecessary documentation, significantly reducing the time it takes to settle a transaction and the associated expenses.

24×7 & 365

90% of banks will not complete wire transfers from Friday through the weekend. On the other hand, with Blockchain, and just a few clicks on your mobile phone, anyone can send money on Saturday, even on Sundays, any time, 24/7 and 365.

To remain relevant and competitive, big banks must become digitized and provide real-time services any day of the week, any time of day, similar to those offered by cryptocurrencies.

CONCLUSION

Security, chargebacks, customer service, digital services, and fees imposed are all areas where traditional banks need to improve. They undoubtedly risk being left behind and forgotten if they do not consider implementing digital alternatives beyond their conventional mobile banking system. The advantages of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies for the average consumer are just too substantial and compelling for banks to ignore.

While there may be legitimate concerns regarding digital currencies’ volatility and the potential to violate financial regulations, their growing popularity indicates a shift in consumer preferences. Traditional banks must embrace technology and provide the rapid, mobile services that so many people want.

Do you know the good news?

Some major financial institutions now appear to be accepting the notion that the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies (Blockchain) should be at least considered and properly evaluated to determine if they are truly “the next great thing”.

Assuming they proceed with caution and due diligence, there is no need for banks to fear the adoption of Blockchain and Crypto, as it will be a major plus for them.

Banks already have the name recognition and customer base, and as such, there is no need to spend heavily on marketing if they shift to Crypto and Blockchain. All they need to do is embrace the technology effectively, along with its inherent advantages, and customer trust will be preserved and retained, if not increased.

Finally, banks need to pay heed to change consumer demands. Getting on board with the digital Blockchain wave will help lessen the threat of cryptocurrency.

Hello banks, and welcome to the new world of payments!

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Polygon All You Need To Know

How was Polygon founded?

Formerly known as MATIC, the Indian origins Polygon is an Indian blockchain scalability platform referred to as ‘Ethereum’s Internet of Blockchains’. Its goal was to answer to some of the challenges still faced by Ethereum today – such as heavy fees, poor user experience and low transactions per second (TPS). And it aims to create a multi-chain ecosystem of ethereum compatible blockchains. 

As mentioned, originally, the project began as the MATIC Network. Later it was rebranded as Polygon when its scope expanded. It aims to provide distinct blockchains that can freely exchange value and information.

Jaynti Kanani, with Sandeep Nailwal, Mihailo Bjelic and Anurag Arjun founded Matic in 2017 while based in Mumbai. Kanani also collaborated with this team on a variety of other projects so they were more than comfortable with each others skill set and they first developed the vision for Polygon before swiftly moving in early 2018 to develop its complete ecosystem.

At the time, the aftermath of the bear market caused many savvy investors to look out for the next big thing within the crypto space and Polygon may have fitted the bill. Although Polygon seems to have fallen a little under their radar it ranks among the top 15 biggest cryptos globally (currently holding 13th place) and has cettainly become a massive hit in India. A surge in user requests and popularity has led cryptocurrency exchanges like CoinSwitch Kuber to list the currency on their platforms

Why is Polygon so popular?

Although it has already captured a place among the top 15 cryptocurrencies, its founders have ambitious plans to make it the third-largest crypto project following Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Polygon is certainly involved with some of the hottest areas of cryptocurrencies, such as DeFi (Decentralized Finance), DApp (Decentralized Application), DAO’s (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and NFT’s (Non-Fungible Tokens). 

We can think of Polygon as an express train. Although it’s on the same track as all other trains it moves faster and makes fewer stops along the way. In this analogy, the track is Ethereum, where Polygon does a quicker job of fulfilling transactions than the Ethereum blockchain itself. Polygon is also the name of the native cryptocurrency used on the Polygon network but the coins trade under the MATIC ticker.

The platform uses a proof-of-stake, or POS, consensus to secure the network and create new currency. How about their current figures? Well, Polygon has a market cap of $3.386 billion, and there are a little over 8 billion polygon coins currently in circulating supply.

And right now? At the time of writing, the price of this cryptocurrency is US$0.87 which represents a more than 25,000% increase over its lifetime to date and despite its peaks and troughs the coin has grown over 86% over the past month although when considering the last year it has seen a decline of a little over 13%.

There are several reasons behind the substantial rise of Polygon from inception to current day 2022 including growing seemingly structured hype around Polygon, the Google BigQuery announcement and of course the undisclosed amount invested by US tech billionaire Mark Cuban.

What was the Google BigQuery announcement? In May of 2021 Polygon announced that the Polygon Blockchain Datasets would be integrated into Google BigQuery, enabling the querying and analysis of on-chain data on Polygon in a simple, organized manner using Google Cloud.

The integration of Polygon data into Google’s BigQuery platform will enable developers, data analysts and crypto-enthusiasts to better understand the Polygon Blockchain and derive powerful insights from it. Polygon aims to serve as Ethereum’s Internet of Blockchains, bringing massive scale to Ethereum via the Polygon SDK, supporting stand-alone chains and secured chains. The availability of a fast and scalable data insights platform is critical to Polygon’s growth with Dapps, Enterprises and other Blockchain Solutions, and Google Cloud’s Public Datasets program does just that.

Growing investor interest around MATIC Polygon’s fantastic growth is also partly because of the surge in popularity of the Ethereum network since 2018 and the adoption of its blockchain. Faster and cheaper transactions facilitated by Polygon’s side chain architecture generate a much-anticipated hype in price and public perception. 

Last year on Feb 9th of 2021, MATIC announced its plans to rebrand itself as Polygon in a structured attempt to be recognized on a global scale. At that time, Polygon also upgraded the system by bringing in promising metaverse projects and integrated Matic Plasma Chain. This enabled it to provide a layer one blockchain network with integrated scaling solutions for NFT, DeFi etc. 

Amid increased congestion on the Ethereum Network and its rising costs, Polygon’s astonishingly low fees are gaining real traction. With an increased demand for scalability networks, Polygon could even onboard more projects with ease. 

The growing adoption of Polygon and other similar platforms can boost investors’ overall sentiment in the crypto market. According to LunarCrush, Polygon’s dominance on all the social media platforms has rose by around 636% during Q1 of 2022. This means that investors were taking a more extensive interest in the currency during the start of the year.

How does Polygon Matic work?

Polygon is a platform design to support infrastructure development and help Ethereum scale. Its core component is a modular, flexible framework (Polygon SDK) that allows developers to build and connect Layer-2 infrastructures like Plasma, Optimistic Rollups, zkRollups, Validium and standalone sidechains like the project’s flagship product, Matic POS (Proof-of-Stake). Since rebranding from Matic Network in February 2021 Polygon pivoted towards supporting multiple Layer-2 infrastructure. It will continue to support the Matic POS sidechain and Plasma-based payment system, which currently hosts over 90 applications.

Layer-2 scaling solutions or external networks can act as load balances for networks that have inherently difficulty to scale as user activity increases.

In 2017, Plasma was at the forefront of blockchain scaling, and Matic featured a plasma-driven scaling approach and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) sidechains to assist Ethereum as user demand for the network grew. Over time, Matic POS became a prominent scaling option for various applications.

In this way Polygon became a sort of Swiss Army knife for scaling solutions. Polygon plans to add support for rollups and Validium to its already-existing Plasma/POS chain. The project recognizes that Ethereum may not scale from a single solution in isolation. There’s a possibility that several solutions will co-exist and help scale Ethereum collectively, and Polygon aims to play a central role in supplying the infrastructure necessary to launch any of these systems.

Anyone who has ever traded on the Ethereum blockchain would be familiar with the high transaction fees and slow fulfilment times on the network. Polygon solves these problems by providing a decentralized platform that facilitates low-cost transactions.

The network describes itself as a layer two scaling solution. Its unique transaction fulfillment technology allows up to 65,000 transactions per second on each side chain. The system uses proof-of-stake checkpoints that could, in the future, allow millions of transactions on the blockchain. In addition, Polygon’s side chains have been designed to support decentralized finance protocols within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Currently, Polygon only supports Ethereum as the base chain but plans on extending its support to other base chains, according to community consensus and its suggestions.

Polygon Tokens in Circulation

Polygon developers release the tokens every month. The maximum supply of polygon tokens is 10,000,000,000, and 8 billion, or 80%, are currently in circulation, according to CoinMarketCap. Polygon has burned, or removed from circulation, 650,000 coins since a January upgrade on its mainnet.

What are Polygons tokenomics?

Sixteen percent of the tokens are team tokens; advisors hold 4%, 12% are network tokens and 23.33% are in the ecosystem. The remaining 21.86% are foundation tokens.

How Much Does Polygon Cost?

As of the start of August 2022, Polygon’s price is $0.87 (according to internationally recognized and trusted Coinbase).

Should I Invest In Polygon?

Since the Polygon platform has many uses, the polygon coin has become popular among investors. But if you are a beginner or do not know much about polygon tokens, it is important to be familiar with the project aims and current status before investing in it.

Framework for Blockchain Networks

In the future, Polygon wants to offer a framework for blockchain networks that would allow users to create interconnecting blockchain networks – hence the columned term as the ‘internet of blockchains’.

If this comes to pass, developers will have a beautiful freedom for network creation. They will be able to develop standalone, flexible and scalable blockchains.

Considering Polygon’s ambitious plans, it is quite likely that the currency will be on the rise in the future.

Ethereum Virtual Machine Compatibility

Many developers use the user-friendly Ethereum Virtual Machine to build decentralized apps.

With its EVM compatibility, Polygon makes it easier for developers to create decentralized apps and port them. Developers have deployed many Ethereum apps onto Polygon, including SushiSwap and Aave.

Polygon’s Price Increased 13,000% in 2021

Polygon experienced incredible gains in 2021, increasing 13,000%, from less than 2 cents to $2.68, between January and May of that year. After a brief stumble, Polygon rose again, hitting an all-time high of $2.8768 in December 2021. However, this higher price did not last for long. Polygon, like most popular cryptocurrencies, went into a freefall in late December 2021, and it appears to still be trending downward on the whole but given a smaller, more recent sample slice of time – as of June, polygon was trading for $0.4231 and is at $0.87 as we referred to earlier. This as an example of the market’s volatility and how much respect we need to show to that volatility when investing.

Is It a Safe Investment?

Regardless of the cryptocurrency you want to invest in, it is imperative to note that any of these currencies are volatile investments. You should be comfortable with a dramatic swing in price without going into panic mode running for the hills, complaining to grandma or negative rant blogging.

Where To Buy Polygon

There’s lots of choice when it comes to buying Polygon as it can be found and purchased from several cryptocurrency exchanges, including:

  • Binance
  • BiONE
  • UniSwap
  • WhiteBIT
  • ZebPay
  • Coinbase Pro
  • Huobi Global
  • Hotbit
  • KuCoin
  • Uphold
  • Gate.io
  • BitYard

The advantages of Polygon

As for polygon, some might consider it a safe investment while others do not. For instance, Mark Cuban, the cryptocurrency-enthusiast billionaire, invested in polygon.

Another positive sign is that Polygon is on a hiring spree amid a cryptocurrency bear market that has many companies, including Coinbase and BlockFi, laying off staff. A slew of high-profile partnerships could be part of the reason. The Draft Kings, Dolce & Gabbana, Macy’s, Adidas, Prada, Stripe, Adobe and Meta – in addition to the NFL – all have launched projects on Polygon. Wow! What testimony to the teams’ current efforts. Surely that has to inspire confidence across the board.

In total, more than 7,000 decentralized apps are running on Polygon. The sheer volume of dApps it supports should keep the platform relevant for a very long time to come.

The disadvantages of Polygon

The downside of Polygon is its attachment to Ethereum. The network is not only competing with other currencies but also with Ethereum itself, which it also depends on. Before you invest in polygon, it would be remiss not to determine if it could face any roadblocks in the future. The primary concern for the platform is the presence of other blockchain network projects, like Avalanche and Polkadot.

These projects may start coexisting in the coming years, leaving no room for Polygon to be hyped up. Moreover, Ethereum is making efforts to upgrade its platform. That upgrade – initially called Ethereum 2.0 and now referred to as The Merge – will result in a transition from the current proof-of-work chain to the new proof-of-stake chain. Once the merge is complete, it could lower Polygon’s popularity although it has to be said that it is extremely doubtful that the merge will result in such a significant impact to compete with what Polygon offers, the potential value it creates, the opportunities it will continue to develop for Ethereum as a network and the general investment sentiment toward the Polygon platform. 

Polygon developers would of course refute this siting their network will remain relevant even when Ethereum 2.0/The Merge comes to fruition because Polygon offers speedier transactions and still allows Ethereum’s communication with other networks.

Perhaps therefore they should hope that another programmable blockchain does not take Ethereum’s spot in the future, sending Polygon down with it. 

Is Polygon a Good Long-Term Investment?

Polygon is just as volatile as you would expect any other cryptocurrency to be. Its developers might have bigger plans for the future, but there is no way to ensure that other blockchain networks or Ethereum itself would not cause a decline in the coin’s popularity and worth. Besides that, the coin has been unable to sustain its brief rallies so far this year, which means the price might still be falling. There is a flip side to that coin however, reflecting on the yearly decrease of 13% but the lifetime increase of 25,000% could either tell us the bigger picture or the current trend.

If you want to invest in this, as any cryptocurrency/ project make sure you follow the staple and golden rule of investment by not putting in more than you can afford to lose.

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All You Need To Know About Uniswap

How was Uniswap Created?

Uniswap was created in November 2018 by Hayden Adams, who had been a mechanical engineer at the German corporation Siemens. He wanted to create a decentralised, deregulated exchange ( a DEX) that did not require users to make a deposit before using it nor open an account and provide sensitive, personal information.

Uniswap’s reliance on mathematical models and liquidity pools rather than last trade prices and order books such as those used by Bitcoin has proven very successful and it has in turn received financial backing from large venture capital firms.

Uniswap is a decentralized finance protocol that’s used to exchange cryptocurrencies. It is also the name of the company that built the Uniswap protocol. The protocol facilitates automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain using smart contracts.

Hayden Adams initial version was published to the Ethereum mainnet on November 2nd 2018. The protocol was launched on the last day of the Devcon 4 conference and it quickly gained a lot of traction, resulting in an initial seed investment to fund work on the second version. Uniswap V2 was launched in May 2020, and in September the new crypto token called UNI was launched.

How does Uniswap work?

Uniswap runs on two smart contracts simultaneously, an ‘Exchange’ contract and a ‘Factory’ contract. These are essentially a sort of automatic computer program designed to perform specific functions when certain conditions are met.  In other words, it could be described as an automated liquidity protocol.

Better known in the space as as an automated market maker (AMM). A decentralized exchange is one that doesn’t have a central authority managing orders. AMMs accomplish this by using smart contracts (programs written on the blockchain) to set prices and execute trades. In doing so, they’re able to offer decentralized financial services otherwise known as DeFi services.

What are AMMs?

AMMs like Uniswap can provide crypto trading because of their liquidity pools. A liquidity pool is a pool of crypto funds, contributed by users, locked in a smart contract. Funds from the liquidity pool are used when people want to trade crypto.

Uniswap takes a small fee from every transaction and distributes it among a pool’s liquidity providers (the people who have deposited their crypto into the pool). It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Uniswap is able to offer crypto trading because of its liquidity providers. The liquidity providers earn crypto because they receive a cut of the exchange’s transaction fees – so you can see the protocols’ appeal a the outset.

It is powered by a system of non-upgradeable smart contracts, on the Ethereum blockchain. Uniswap is open-source software licensed and each smart contract manages a liquidity pool comprising two ERC-20 tokens (a type of token in Ethereum).

What are the constituents of Uniswap?

As the native token of the Uniswap decentralized exchange, UNI is the token that powers the DEX. It is awarded to investors who stake their assets, and also acts as a governance token.

A governance token effectively gives holders voting rights on issues concerning the DEX. This allows owners of UNI to participate in decisions on how the network operates and benefit from the rising value of decentralized exchanges over time. You could say in some sense that the more you own the more you get. For example; UNI holders who hold 1% or more of the total UNI supply even have the opportunity to submit development proposals. In essence, the value of UNI tokens correlates with the inherent value investors receive with the Uniswap exchange. Perhaps a posh and lateral way of saying that you get what you pay for. Or at least more of a say.

What makes Uniswap popular?

Uniswap is unlike other cryptos because, technically, it is more of an exchange platform more than a standalone crytpo. UNI can be held and traded but its main use is as a liquid intermediate asset in exchange transactions.

With a market capitalisation of around US$5.1 billion, Uniswap is currently in the ‘top 20 most valuable’ digital asset class. Currently, there are circa 746 million UNI coins in circulation and the maximum supply of UNI coins are capped at 1 billion so there’s clearly an appeal amongst the masses.

Following broader crypto trends, the UNI price rose sharply at the beginning of 2021 and touched a record high of $45.02 in May of 2021. Since then prices have declined drastically by around 85% with its current trading position as of August 2022 at sub $7.

Most traders, however, are still quite bullish on the prospects of Uniswap with some maintaining that the price will surge to as high as US$80 in the next five years. Overly optimistic? Well, maybe but it is a developing protocol and sits within the current market that is witnessing a severely bearish sentiment on the whole.

Decentralized exchanges have come under severe scrutiny by regulators, who are gunning to enforce regulations, centralization, and ultimately, the demise of DEX. Whether the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or any regulatory body cracks down (or at least successfully) on Uniswap or any of its peers in a meaningful way remains to be seen. Naturally, if the Uniswap DEX comes under attack, the token’s price will plummet, leading to substantial investment losses.

Uniswap compared to Ethereum

The use cases, market caps and so on, are of course very different when making this almost misplaced comparison. However, the one similarity between ETH, Ethereum’s native token, and the UNI token are that both operate on Ethereum’s blockchain architecture.

However, ETH operates on Layer 1, while UNI operates on Layer 2; Layer 1 network referring to a blockchain, while a Layer-2 protocol is a third-party integration that can be used in conjunction with said Layer-1 blockchain. As a solution, developers create Layer-2 protocols that rely on the Layer-1 network for consensus and security.

ERC20 is a standard used for creating and issuing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. The majority of tokens on Ethereum’s Layer 2 are in fact, ERC20 tokens. That’s why unfortunately users of Uniswap DEX need to pay gas fees with ETH to some frustration. But at least the frustration is expected with any Ethereum based transaction. 

Uniswap can be found on major world wide exchanges. This is considered by some to be of critical importance since the exchanges are trusted by millions of us who buy, sell, and hold digital assets long-term.

The Uniswap exchange doesn’t require more government-issued cards for ID purposes and due to its decentralized nature, the process that an exchange takes known as ‘Know Your Customer’ is nonexistent. This means that as long as you have money you are ready to purchase and sell ERC20 tokens. In centralized exchanges some ID verification can take several hours or several days to complete so its appeal is somewhat limited should an investor wish to move quickly.

Uniswap unveiled another upgrade to stay on top of DeFi in May of 2021. Uniswap say that the goal is to make Uniswap the most flexible and efficient automated market maker ever designed. The features of the automated market maker are unique with Uniswap and like others such as Sushiswap and 1 Inch runs on the network as an ERC20 token and enables the exchange of Ethereum-based assets for several crypto natives.

Uniswap underwent an extensive review on the dev community in the finance space. The conclusion was a that it has secured smart contract coding and is a non-custodial platform that gives the users control over their wallets and private keys. Not a bad review!

Decentralization is the hallmark of the crypto finance space as millions of people are drawn to its offerings as there are no intermediaries so control is in the hands of the community. A refreshing alternative to greedy intermediaries.

Uniswap Competition

Uniswap faces competition from other DEXs on Ethereum like SushiSwap, Curve, and more. Such as the arrival of Internet Computer (ICP) – a set of protocols that allow independent data centers around the world to band together and offer a decentralized alternative to the current centralized internet cloud providers – essentially decentralising the internet.

Should I invest in Uniswap?

As ever we do not provide financial advice. However investors with a crypto wallet who want to swap tokens or earn interest with liquidity mining should find UNI to be a viable option as a service or as an addition to their portfolio. 

But as with so many things in life to every Yin there must be a Yang. With that in mind what are the Pros and Cons of Uniswap?

The advantages of Uniswap

  • Swap ERC-20 tokens
  • User-friendly design
  • Earn crypto with liquidity mining
  • No registration required, no KYC
  • Crypto wallet support

The disadvantages of Uniswap

  • Doesn’t accept fiat money
  • Gas fees
  • Risk of impermanent loss
  • No KYC

Summary

As always we should educate ourselves about an asset before investing and that includes thinking about what you can do with your UNI token. You can choose the add liquidity option to lend crypto to any liquidity pools with the UNI token option.

Be aware that investing in any asset including crypto is not without its risks and Funganomics® certainly do not claim to provide financial advice within this article. Investors should approach these assets like any other technological investment, with a long-term mindset and to expect the volatility of ups and downs.

Although the current UNI price may be low perhaps that presents us with the right opportunity given its development, adoption and market potential.