Uniswap is a popular decentralized trading protocol, known for its role in facilitating automated trading of decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens.

An example of an automated market maker (AMM), Uniswap launched in November 2018 but has gained considerable popularity this year thanks to the DeFi phenomenon and associated surge in token trading.

Uniswap aims to keep token trading automated and completely open to anyone who holds tokens, while improving the efficiency of trading versus that on traditional exchanges.

UNI creates more efficiency by solving liquidity issues with automated solutions, avoiding the problems which plagued the first decentralized exchanges.

In September 2020, Uniswap went a step further by creating and awarding its own governance token, UNI, to past users of the protocol. This added both profitability potential and the ability for users to shape its future — an attractive aspect of decentralized entities.

UNI exists to create liquidity — and therefore trading and the value that trading provides — for the DeFi sphere.

Uniswap is not just a decentralized exchange; it attempts to solve the issues that platforms such as EtherDelta experienced with liquidity.

By automating the process of market making, the protocol incentivizes activity by limiting risk and reducing costs for all parties. The mechanism also removes identity requirements for users, and technically anyone can create a liquidity pool for any pair of tokens.

According to Uniswap, their governance token (UNI) was created in order to “officially enshrin[e] Uniswap as publicly-owned and self-sustainable infrastructure while continuing to carefully protect its indestructible and autonomous qualities.”