Key Takeaways
- New governance proposals in the Uniswap community would deploy the app on Polkadot’s Moonbeam parachain and Gnosis Chain.
- The first proposal notes several advantages of working with Polkadot, including high developer activity and a strong community presence.
- Uniswap currently is leads the way for decentralized exchanges on Ethereum, but has yet to expand to other blockchains.
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Community voting is underway to decide if Uniswap, Ethereum’s most popular decentralized exchange, will deploy on Moonbeam, Polkadot’s first parachain, and on Gnosis Chain. Uniswap has deployed on several Layer 2 scaling solutions, including Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism, but it has yet to expand outside of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Uniswap on Polkadot
Uniswap may broaden its horizons if a new governance proposal is any indication.
Voting has begun within the Uniswap community on a governance proposal to deploy the popular decentralized exchange on Moonbeam, a Polkadot parachain powering DeFi applications. The voting went live on May 12 and, according to Uniswap Labs’ official Twitter feed, ends tomorrow, May 19.
Voting is also underway on a similar proposal that would launch Uniswap on Gnosis Chain; that vote is scheduled to end May 20.
While Uniswap is one of the most successful apps on Ethereum and has expanded its reach to include Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, it has yet to make any moves outside of the Ethereum ecosystem. If the proposal is approved, it would be a major step in broadening Uniswap’s potential market.
According to the first proposal, a successful launch on Moonbeam would mean access to the larger target market of Polkadot users, which has remained largely discrete from Uniswap users. Moonbeam, it notes, is the “de facto DeFi hub for Polkadot,” and the stated aim of the proposal is to become its primary liquidity hub and automated market maker. Gnosis chain, meanwhile, has been targeted as “a DeFi ecosystem primed for growth.” In both cases, the proposals intend to solidify Uniswap as the premier player in the multichain DeFi space.
Moonbeam features EVM compatibility, making it a convenient entry point for Ethereum developers looking to expand to Polkadot. This is in keeping with the proposal’s stated ambition of making Uniswap into the leading multichain exchange on the market:
“Moonbeam is a Polkadot parachain which features EVM-compatibility, allowing it to serve as a port-of-entry for Ethereum-native apps to participate in the greater Polkadot ecosystem. Deploying on Moonbeam will expand the Uniswap community to include users of the Polkadot ecosystem, helping Uniswap on its journey to become a leading product in the multichain world.”
Despite Polkadot’s somewhat languid performance in the market, the proposal expresses a certain faith in the project, citing its consistently high developer activity and a community that has grown in tandem with Ethereum’s.
The proposal states that, if successful, deployment would take place approximately three to four weeks after the vote.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH, DOT, and several other cryptocurrencies.
