Uniswap’s native token has surged by 50% in one week, thus becoming the first DeFi token to hold a place in the crypto’s top 10. With a $17.7 billion market cap, UNI currently ranks as the eighth-largest crypto asset by capitalization.
According to Messari, UNI has left Chainlink behind, beating it out by almost 50% of its market cap, and it is now the second-largest Ethereum-based asset. Tether remains the largest ETH-based asset with a $36.4 billion market cap.
UNI entered this top 10 on March 5th as its market cap went from $8.8 billion on March 4th to $14.7 billion. This leap took place in just 24 hours and turned UNI into the first native token of a DeFi DApp to reach this place.
At the time of writing, UNI trades at $34.74, and the token’s entrance into the crypto’s top 10 comes after a month of several records for trade volume. February witnessed four consecutive records for the weekly Uniswap trade volume as well as an ATH of $31.9 billion in volume.
However, the weekly volume has dropped by 25%, currently sitting at $6.4 billion. Even so, Uniswap stands for 50% off the entire trade on Ethereum-powered DEXes.
The evolution and records UNI has enjoyed lately have taken place amid growing speculation that the exchange’s V3 upgrade may happen soon. Referring to Hayden Adams’ recent increase in social media activity, Yearn Finance developer Andre Cronje posted the following:
What’s worth noting is that the Uniswap lead developer replied with a “pls delete” tweet, which has only added to the suspicions that the exchange might be on the verge of making an important announcement.