Trading Volume on Ethereum-based DEX Uniswap Beats Coinbase Pro

Uniswap’s daily trading volume today hit new highs—surpassing Coinbase Pro’s daily volume for the first time. 

The Ethereum-based decentralized exchange and liquidity provider’s trading volume stood at over $441 million at the time of writing, according to its online stats. That’s a 70% increase in the past 24 hours. 

Meanwhile, the 24-hour trading volume of Coinbase Pro—Coinbase’s full-service crypto exchange—stood at just over $373 million, according to CoinMarketCap data. 

Both Uniswap and Coinbase were still dwarfed by the 24-hour trading volume of Binance, however, which today was nearly $6.5 billion. 

The surge in Uniswap’s trading volume is likely down to the surge in interest in ERC20 tokens, and the broader rise of DeFi, or decentralized finance. On Uniswap, users can swap ERC20 tokens at will, reducing the need for a counterparty. 

As decentralized finance’s (DeFi) popularity has surged, so has the interest in the tokens needed to participate in the protocols. YFI, the governance token that runs yearn.finance, for example, last night hit $38,682—nearly four times the price of Bitcoin. (Granted, its high price is due in part to its tiny token supply). 

The ERC20 token craze is thought to be unsustainable by some, however. Andre Cronje, the creator of YFI, said yesterday that the huge amount of people buying and selling governance tokens was driving the DeFi boom—and wouldn’t last long.