Token Utility
In the first 3 years since launch, and even when Uniswap V2 was released with many more utilities, Uniswap operated without a token, the project works for free. I think they believe that, without needing a native token, Uniswap can still work well.
Until Sushiswap, the fork version of Uniswap, was born, proving to Uniswap that native tokens could be used to bootstrap projects, Uniswap then launched its own token.
UNI was launched on September 16, at a price of $1, and quickly increased to the price range of $9, after being listed on almost all major exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, Huobi, Okex,... just after few hours of token launch. It can be seen how great the level of interest is for the UNI token.
UNI token is used for 3 main purposes:
- Governance: This is the main function of the UNI token. In a large community like Uniswap, the governance function plays a very important role.
- Providing liquidity: user can buy UNI tokens to provide liquidity
- Liquidity Mining Rewards: In the first phase of launching the UNI token, Uniswap launched the Liquidity Mining program, incentivizing liquidity provision and receiving UNI tokens. However, this program ended in just 3 months, which greatly affected Uniswap as a large amount of liquidity was withdrawn and transferred to other direct competitors, such as SushiSwap. Show Less