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Uniswap V4 Catalyst: UNI Token Primed For Growth As New Chain Launch Loom

Uniswap, one of the world’s largest decentralized exchanges (DEX), is poised for significant growth with the upcoming launch of its V4 upgrade. This anticipated update will introduce custom Automated Market Maker (AMM) functionality directly on top of Uniswap, eliminating the need for separate AMM designs.

In addition, Uniswap’s governance token, UNI, has seen notable growth, with a 6.8% increase in the last 24 hours and an 8% increase in the previous 30 days, bringing the UNI token to $7.318.

However, while these developments favor the exchange and investors, decentralized finance (DeFi) researcher DeFi Ignas has raised concerns regarding the launch and its potential impact on critical features.

The Ultimate DeFi Liquidity Solution With Uniswap V4?

According to DeFi Ignas’ latest analysis on X (formerly Twitter), Uniswap V4 represents a significant transformation from a protocol to a platform. Like the Apple Store’s impact on the iPhone, Uniswap V4 will consolidate all pools into a single framework, reducing creation costs by 99% and enabling more cost-effective multi-pool swaps.

The introduction of the “Hooks” system is particularly noteworthy. These hooks act as plugins or extensions, allowing for customized code execution during crucial events within a pool. 

The 13 available hooks enable various functionalities, including on-chain limit orders, time-weighted average market making, liquidity depositing into lending protocols, auto compound liquidity provider (LP) fees, and know-your-customer (KYC) integration.

Introducing hooks leads DeFi Ignas to believe that the launch of Uniswap V4 will allow developers to experiment and launch their protocols while leveraging Uniswap’s liquidity.

According to the researcher, this has the potential to attract even more liquidity from other decentralized exchanges and establish Uniswap as the dominant liquidity layer for all DeFi activities, from trading to lending.

Yet, while unified liquidity may benefit users by increasing market efficiency, it raises concerns about potential market concentration and stifling of competition.

UNI Token Gains Momentum

Uniswap’s V4 liquidity sourcing could concentrate liquidity within the platform, potentially making it the go-to liquidity layer for DeFi. According to DeFi Ignas, this dominance, coupled with Uniswap’s operating license that prohibits forking until 2027, raises questions about market competition and the potential impact on decentralized finance. 

In addition, reports suggest that Uniswap Labs has sent takedown notices to gateways of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) – a decentralized and distributed protocol designed to facilitate the storage and sharing of files on a peer-to-peer network – adding another layer of concern about decentralized access and censorship resistance.

Regarding the potential upside of Uniswap V4 acting as a catalyst for the exchange’s token, the research went on to suggest that while UNI’s value “accrual” for retail investors has been relatively modest, the introduction of Uniswap V4 and its hooks opens up new possibilities.

In this sense, DeFi Ignas believes the UNI token could function as a platform/ecosystem token, benefiting from third-party decentralized applications (dApps) developed using Uniswap’s hooks, expanding the token’s use cases and potentially attracting more investors.

Additionally, there is speculation that Uniswap may solidify its dominance and liquidity by launching its chain, potentially as a layer-two (L2) solution, which could further boost the valuation of the UNI token.

Uniswap V4

As the upgrade deadline for Uniswap approaches, the impact of the exchange’s upgrade on the UNI token remains uncertain. However, there has been a noticeable growth in the token’s value over the past few weeks. 

After reaching a 17-month high of $8.260 in January, the token experienced a correction but has since broken out of that pattern. As the upgrade deadline draws near, it is yet to be determined whether the token can consolidate its gains and regain previous levels.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com

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Crypto Analyst Presents Uniswap’s UNI As The Next Coin Primed For Breakout

Several altcoins are currently on the rise following Bitcoin’s resurgence, and popular crypto analyst Ali Martinez has singled out the Uniswap UNI token as one of those tokens that could rally further as he projects that UNI is set to break out soon from its current resistance level. 

Why Uniswap Is Poised For A Breakout

In a post shared on his X (formerly Twitter) platform, Martinez noted that the majority of UNI holders were positioned ‘Out of the Money,’ which suggests that the token was preparing for a breakout. Accompanying his post was data from the crypto analytics platform Intotheblock based on the ‘Historical In/Out of the Money’ metric.

The data shows that over 75% of the token holders are ‘out of the money’, which means that they were yet to break even in their investments as the average cost price at which they bought these tokens is greater than its current price. 

Uniswap UNIMore addresses are out of the money | Source: IntoTheBlock

Furthermore, the crypto analyst explained that selling pressure has gotten exhausted and that the UNI token has been able to build “an important support” level at around $4. This could serve as a lift-off point for the altcoin.

Key Supply Walls UNI Needs To Break

To further support his breakout theory, Martinez noted two supply walls that UNI “needs” to overcome in order to signal a bullish breakout. According to him, one of these supply walls is at $4.23, where data from Intotheblock shows that 7,000 addresses have bought 14.24 million worth of UNI. 

The other supply wall is at $4.45, where data from Intotheblock shows that 2,000 Uniswap addresses have accumulated 10.28 million worth of UNI. Whales and institutional players may also be aware of this potential breakout and may be looking to position themselves, as Martinez noted. 

The crypto analyst also recently commented on a potential Ethereum breakout. In a different post on his X platform, he said that the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap will need to overcome the huge supply wall at $1,960, where data from Intotheblock showed that 1.14 million addresses bought close to 33 million ETH.

Meanwhile, Martinez believes that now is a good time for people to accumulate Bitcoin based on his examination of the past two cycles from the market bottom and the present Bitcoin trend. According to him, a similar trajectory points to the next Bitcoin market top being around October 2025.

At the time of writing, the UNI token is trading at around $4.10, according to data from CoinMarketCap. 

Uniswap UNI price chart from Tradingview.com (Crypto analyst)

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Uniswap Unveils Funding Plan For Ecosystem Revamp As UNI Price Hits 4-Month Low

In a move aimed at advancing their vision of creating a self-sovereign Internet with a permissionless alternative to traditional finance (TradFi), the Uniswap Foundation (UF) has submitted a proposal to secure the second tranche of funding. 

The desired funding, totaling $62.37 million, will be put to an on-chain vote scheduled for Wednesday, October 4th, with a 10% buffer included to mitigate price volatility.

Uniswap Foundation Seeks Community Approval

The separation of the funding request into two tranches was initially established to allow the UF to finalize its legal entity and obtain non-profit status from the Internal US Revenue Service (IRS), as the company is based in Brooklyn New York, ensuring clarity on tax implications before receiving the larger portion of funds. The UF obtained this status in the spring of this year, prompting the request for the second tranche.

The first tranche of funding, approved by Uniswap governance last year, aimed for $20 million but experienced a decrease in value due to a drop in the price of UNI, the native token of the Uniswap Protocol. 

Consequently, the Uniswap Foundation received $17.3 million worth of UNI, creating a remainder of $56.7 million to be requested in the second tranche. A 10% buffer of $5.67 million has been included to account for potential price fluctuations, bringing the total request to $62.37 million.

The Uniswap Foundation plans to receive the funds in UNI, with the amount determined using a 30-day UNI/USD TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price). The pricing and its source will be explicitly noted in the on-chain proposal to ensure transparency in the process.

Regarding future operations, Uniswap currently holds 452,534 UNI tokens for employee vesting, valued at around $1.9 million. Factoring in a capital loss of $259,000 and the current UNI price, the UF has approximately $9.24 million remaining for operational expenses, expected to sustain them until Q4 2024. 

Lastly, according to the proposal discussion, the Uniswap Foundation anticipates revisiting governance in mid-2024 to extend its operational runway.

UNI Consolidates Amid Bearish Market Sentiment

Uniswap’s native token, UNI, has been consolidated between the price range of $4.198 and $4.311 over the past week. 

This price stagnation comes from the overall market trend and a bearish macro outlook, with the token experiencing a 0.5% decline in the fourteen-day timeframe. Furthermore, UNI has dropped 9.6% over the past 30 days, reaching a four-month low.

Uniswap

In the short term, UNI bulls must defend the current price floor to establish a strong support level. They aim to surpass the resistance walls at $4.418 and $4.487 to break the downtrend structure and potentially rally toward $6.259. It is worth noting that this price level is still below UNI’s annual high of $7.629.

According to Token Terminal data, Uniswap’s circulating market cap currently stands at $3.67 billion, experiencing a recent decrease of 6.66%. The fully diluted market cap, which considers the total number of UNI tokens that could enter circulation, stands at $4.27 billion, displaying an 8.15% decrease.

The total value locked (TVL) in Uniswap, representing the amount of cryptocurrency assets deposited and utilized within the platform, has recently declined by 5.31%. This decline reflects the broader Decentralized Finance (DeFi) sector’s challenges.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

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Uniswap Sellers Stop But RSI Develops Bearish UNI Price Divergence

Cryptocurrencies have been suffering higher volatility since the bear took control. For example, the fledgling crypto coin Bitcoin price plummeted to a low of $18,363 on Oct 13 and then reversed to $19,354 today. Unlike the other top coins creeping, Uniswap’s native token, UNI, marks higher gains. Although its price touched $5.50 when BTC plummeted on Thursday, UNI added over 14% following the day and claimed a $6.49 high.

At the time of writing, the token’s value hovers around $6.20, up by 0.96% in the last 24 hours. The Uniswap market cap also indicates a bullish trend, signifying the crypto winter started to ignore the project. Its capitalization has increased to $4.70 billion, representing a 0.24% gain.

Financial Indicators MACD Line And RSI Suggest Bearish Divergence

In line with the daily price analysis, UNI against USD presents a bullish trend ahead. The price actions form a high-low pattern which signs an uptrend for the token. As recent price moves show, investors did not miss any opportunity and connected with all swing lows. Likewise, Uniswap ended its retracement phase below $5 in the last week and now seems to find resistance above this. The expected price range for the token in October remains between $5.3 to $7.

Opposite to the positive happenings within the UNI network, the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) line, an oscillator used to indicate market trends, currently points toward the bearish signal for the token and crosses the line. Likewise, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) shows a bearish divergence as its peak continues falling toward the 50 zone.

UNI’s price is currently trading at $6.15. | Source: UNIUSD price chart from TradingView.com
Uniswap To Deploy On zkSync For Cheaper Fee And Enhanced Security

UNI is the governance token of the decentralized exchange Uniswap, which allows users to trade and sell cryptos using smart contracts. It seems users and organizations are pushing for privacy in the sector, driving adoption and positively affecting prices. For example, on Wed, 12 October 2022, Coin Center, a think tank on cryptocurrencies, filed a suit against OFAC over restrictions against Tornado Cash, a privacy mixer (decentralized cryptocurrency tumbler). In return, almost the whole market reacted by going green as the news spread.

Notably, today’s announcement by the Uniswap platform might become a catalyst to pump the token’s price further. The Uniswap exchange has declared to build on the zkSync for enhanced privacy and security.

zkSync uses novel technology, also known as ZK Rollups, to enable faster transactions with minimum gas cost. The company decided to deploy privacy-focused layer two after completing a governance vote. Offering a minimum fee without compromising on security will attract more users and accelerate the network’s activity.

The parent company of zkSync, Matter Labs, commented that this move would onboard new users. Furthermore, the low network fee than Ethereum will make the platform more attractive. The company noted in a statement;

There’s significant value in Uniswap being available on an EVM-compatible ZK Rollup. Deploying early on zkSync helps solidify Uniswap’s place as the number one DEX and a thought leader.

Therefore, with zkSynce launch on mainnet within the next six weeks, investors’ wallets may profit from the project’s growth.  In addition, the token might enjoy resistance above $7 in the coming days, which the investors are hard to manage.

Featured image from Pixabay and chart from TradingView.com