Uniswap overtakes Ethereum on fees; DeFi outperforms

Uniswap beating out Ethereum in fees in just a week is a big feat as Ethereum is the blockchain that houses most of DeFi and is noted for its high fees

By Shashank Bhardwaj

Image: Shutterstock

Decentralised exchange Uniswap has surpassed its host blockchain Ethereum in terms of fees paid over a seven-day rolling average.

The spike appears to be part of a recent surge in DeFi demand amid the ongoing bearish market. Decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms such as AAVE and Synthetix have experienced increases in fees paid over the last seven days, while the prices of their native tokens, as well as other platforms such as Compound (COMP), have also increased.

The average daily fee earned from daily trades on UniSwap between June 15 and June 21 is $4.87 million, according to the data collected from Crypto Fees. In terms of daily fees paid over a seven-day rolling average, Uniswap has surpassed Ethereum, on which the average daily fees accounted for $4.58 million.

During this time, Ethereum's total fees only beat Uniswap's on two out of seven days. On June 15, Uniswap generated $8.36 million in fees, topping Ethereum, which generated $7.99 million on the same day.

Uniswap allows P2P (peer-to-peer) swaps of Ethereum-based tokens without a central authority to facilitate the deals. This is done through the use of automated smart contracts. Traders pay fees to liquidity providers who receive 100 percent of the fees on the DEX under Uniswap's pricing structure.

According to CoinGecko data, Uniswap has risen 17.4 percent in the last seven days to $5.18 at the time of writing. The recent acquisition of the NFT marketplace aggregator Genie and the recruitment of former New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) President Stacey Cunningham as an advisor to Uniswap Labs may have become key factors in making this happen.

Even with the current bearish marketplace, there has been significant investor interest in various DeFi projects, making Uniswap one of the many platforms experiencing an increase in fees and token price.

For instance, AAVE lending protocol and synthetic derivatives trading platform Synthetix are rated third and fifth in terms of overall fees charged during the last week, with $981,883 and $600,214, respectively.

AAVE, like Uniswap, experienced an increase in fees on June 15, with its total increasing by 69 percent to $1.44 million. Its native token AAVE has also increased by 22 percent since then.

Shashank is the founder of yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash

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