Ethereum decentralized exchange Uniswap has launched a new blockchain to speed up transactions for its popular DeFi project. Dubbed Unichain, the layer-2 network has already processed more than 88 million test transactions, according to Uniswap. The aim of the L2 is so that traders and devs building new apps will be able to do everything faster.
In fact, Uniswap said Tuesday that the network “will make Unichain the fastest chain in the industry. We’re here to make DeFi faster, cheaper, more decentralized, which is why we launched Unichain to be permissionless from day one,” Uniswap Labs founder and CEO Hayden Adams said in the organization’s press release. DeFi—or decentralized finance—is the catch-all term for the apps and tools in the crypto space that want to replace traditional financial products like banks. DeFi apps allow users to earn a yield on, swap, or lend out their crypto.
But such tools are still very experimental and prone to hacks. In the DeFi space, Uniswap is one of the most popular DeFi products. It’s a DEX, or decentralized exchange, that anyone can use to trade coins and tokens without a middleman. Its counterparts, like Coinbase or Binance, are centralized. Uniswap runs on Ethereum, the crypto network behind the second largest virtual coin by market cap, ETH. But the network is popular and as a result, often becomes congested—and expensive.
Layer 2 networks like Unichain hope to speed things up. “For crypto traders, high gas fees and slow transactions have long been a problem. With fast block times and low fees, Unichain is optimized for on-chain markets, offering one-second blocks and 95% cheaper gas than Ethereum,” Uniswap’s Tuesday announcement read. But there has been some concern this year that layer 2 networks may in fact be bad for Ethereum—using such networks could take market capitalization away from Ethereum in the long-term, experts have warned.
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