Uniswap Joins BNB Chain

The decentralized exchange Uniswap has officially launched its services on the BNB Chain network. 

BNB Chain Welcomes Uniswap

The world’s largest decentralized exchange has officially launched its services on the EVM-compatible smart contract blockchain, BNB Chain. Since the former gets the most trading volume of all decentralized exchanges, this move would highly impact the BNB Chain’s trading traffic. 

According to Alvin Kan, the Director of Growth at BNB Chain, the addition of the Uniswap protocol has been a welcome change. 

He noted, 

“With BNB Chain's thriving and dedicated community, scalability, and accessibility, it is a launchpad for all things web3, where protocols looking to reach larger audiences can grow. We are delighted to see Uniswap’s continued commitment to delivering value to its users and building for the future of decentralization.”

The users of the Uniswap Protocol will also benefit highly due to the low transaction fees of the BNB Chain for trading and swapping tokens across the network. The protocol was previously hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, which has relatively higher transaction fees. 

From Ethereum To BNB Chain 

The move was first proposed by 0x Plasma Labs, who presented a governance proposal to deploy Uniswap v3 on the BNB Chain. According to 0x Plasma Labs, the move would help Uniswap to capture a larger share of the decentralized exchange niche. In fact, it was estimated that Uniswap would be able to capture upto 50% of PancakeSwap’s market share. For further context, PancakeSwap is the leading decentralized exchange on BNB Chain, with $2.5 billion in total value locked (TVL). The move will also increase accessibility and liquidity for Uniswap users. 

Contentious Governance Voting Selects Wormhole

After much deliberation over the selection of a suitable bridge solution for the deployment, the proposal passed with over 55 million UNI token holders voting in favor. However, the voting was highly contentious, as it pitted two of the most active venture firms, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Jump Crypto, against one another. A16z used its considerable UNI holdings to vote against the proposal to pick Wormhole as the designated bridge, which would help users transfer their assets from the Ethereum mainnet to the BNB Chain. 

However, as it appears, the votes toward Wormhole outweighed a16z’s contender - LayerZero. Even though Wormhole lost around $325 million in funds in an attack in 2022, it received a majority of the votes, primarily due to its inclusion in most portfolios. A16z’s actions surprised many supporters of Wormhole as they did not expect the crypto venture firm to go against the community vote.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.