Bitfinex Lists UNI as DeFi Token Price Doubles in Two Days

Crypto exchange Bitfinex is the latest major cryptocurrency exchange to list $UNI, the governance token that powers decentralized exchange Uniswap.

Bitifnex today opened trading of pairings for UNI/USD and UNI/USDT (that's Tether, the US dollar-pegged stablecoin). Deposits, trading and withdrawals are all open. Bitfinex follows Coinbase Pro, OKEx and Binance, major cryptocurrency exchanges that have also listed the token.

$UNI, which launched on Wednesday, traded for $3.21 on Thursday. Its value has since doubled; as of this writing, it is worth $6.56, according to data from metrics site CoinMarketCap.

$UNI is a governance token, meaning that holders can stake it to vote on proposals to upgrade the network. High-rollers can propose their own upgrades.

Those who provide liquidity to the network earn the token as an extra reward. Uniswap is a decentralized exchange that relies on a liquidity pool to facilitate trades. A liquidity pool is a bunch of money that Uniswap's customers can draw on to swap tokens.

Uniswap's $UNI token matches the offering of SushiSwap, a Uniswap clone that last month added the same governance token distribution mechanism for its token, $SUSHI.

SushiSwap, which today has $487 million locked up in its smart contracts, had been eating up Uniswap's business. After launching $UNI, Uniswap is the DeFi smart contract with the most value locked up in its smart contracts—$1.85 billion, according to data from metrics site DeFi Pulse.