Uniswap will deploy on Polkadot parachain Moonbeam

The Uniswap crypto exchange will soon be available on Moonbeam (GLMR), a parachain of Polkadot (DOT), according to a May 17 approved proposal on the exchange’s governance forum. The proposal was put forward by educational group Blockchain at Michigan. It passed with near unanimous support, with only a single UNI token being used to vote against it.

1/ @Uniswap – the most popular decentralized exchange by daily traded volume – is coming to Polkadot via the @MoonbeamNetwork parachain, increasing volume & liquidity across the ecosystem! pic.twitter.com/lKaceLv6ce

— Polkadot (@Polkadot) May 17, 2023

The smart contracts for the exchange have already been deployed to Moonbeam, and the only tasks left to fully launch it are “front-end integration updates and including Moonbeam to the auto router,” the proposal stated.

Initial liquidity on the exchange may be low, as the proposal warns that “Due to tumultuous market conditions, promises of liquidity bootstrapping have been temporarily excised.” However, it also states that Blockchain at Michigan is exploring the idea of applying for a Moonbeam grant to provide liquidity as soon as possible. If a grant is approved, it would be “on behalf of the DAO,” the proposal said, implying that funds would be held by Uniswap’s decentralized autonomous organization.

In an accompanying announcement from Polkadot developer Parity Technologies, business development executive Omar Elassar said he thought the new version would help to increase speed and security for Uniswap users:

Polkadot is a strong fit for Uniswap, whose users can discover everything the network’s parachains offer, such as high performance, scalability, security, and interoperability.

Polkadot is an interconnected web of blockchain networks called “parachains.” These chains connect to each other and share security through the Polkadot relay chain. The Moonbeam parachain is specifically focused on providing a developer environment similar to Ethereum, with the goal of making it easy for developers to port their Ethereum apps over to the Polkadot ecosystem.

Uniswap is the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) in the world by trading volume, doing over $480 million in trading per day according to CoinMarketCap. It was originally created for the Ethereum network, but has been aggressively expanding into other networks over the past few months. Uniswap launched a BNB Chain version on March 15 and deployed to Polygon zkEVm on April 14. It also produced an iOS mobile app on April 14 to facilitate onboarding of more users.