Liquidity is key in making open finance work, and Uniswap’s success lies, in part, in its system of pooling liquidity in a single smart contract on-chain. What began as a side project for an out-of-work mechanical engineer has become a major player in the DeFi space, establishing a protocol for an automated token exchange on Ethereum and setting itself apart in terms of decentralization and censorship-resistance.
Hayden Adams is the founder of Uniswap, the decentralized exchange that affords users a simple smart contract interface for trading ERC-20 tokens, a formalized model for pooling liquidity reserves, and an open-source front-end for traders and liquidity providers. Today, Hayden joins us to offer insight around the design tradeoffs he considered in building Uniswap, the pros, and cons of the constant product model, and the advantage to using ether as a single medium of exchange.
Hayden also explains how Uniswap reduces the complexity of becoming a market-maker and how the project has become a pillar of the DeFi space. Listen in to understand how Hayden is thinking about building a business on top of the protocol in light of its recent backing by Paradigm and learn about the team’s current focus on improving its user experience and function as a price oracle.
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