Uniswap, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol on the blockchain, has recently launched UniswapX. According to the official announcement, only a few currencies such as DAI, UNI, 1INCH, and APE can currently be traded on UniswapX without incurring gas fees.
UniswapX was officially released on the web version of Uniswap, and the next day, Uniswap Labs announced on Twitter that users can now experience the “zero gas” and “anti-MEV” on-chain trading experience provided by UniswapX.
UniswapX has been highly anticipated by the market since its testnet version was launched in July last year. It has taken eight months for UniswapX to finally meet with users.
Uniswap announced the birth of UniswapX on July 17 last year. It is a non-custodial protocol based on Dutch auctions. UniswapX aims to gradually achieve the on-chain trading experience comparable to centralized exchanges (CEX) by aggregating liquidity, preventing front-running (MEV), and enabling gas-free transactions.
After the announcement, UniswapX entered the intense product development stage. In September of the same year, Uniswap Labs launched a bug bounty program, offering rewards for vulnerabilities in contracts such as Router, V3, and UniswapX, with a maximum reward of up to 2.25 million US dollars.
In February of this year, Uniswap Labs announced the introduction of limit order functionality, supported by UniswapX. This feature utilizes both on-chain and off-chain liquidity, requires no gas fees, and can be set for any trading scale without a minimum requirement.
If the market reaches the price specified by the user, and the “filler” of UniswapX accepts the user’s exchange request, the order will be automatically executed without any gas fees. If the order is not fulfilled within the user’s specified time, it will expire without incurring any fees.
According to the official documentation of Uniswap, UniswapX outsources the routing complexity to third-party fillers in an open network. These fillers compete to fill transactions using on-chain liquidity (such as Uniswap v2 or v3) or their own private inventory. Anyone can become a third-party filler for UniswapX transactions.
Currently, UniswapX is only available on the web application of Uniswap on the Ethereum mainnet, and it will be expanded to other products such as Uniswap Wallet in the future.
To experience UniswapX, users simply need to toggle on the “UniswapX” switch in the settings button on the top right corner of the Uniswap web application. However, it is currently limited to a few currencies such as DAI, UNI, 1INCH, and APE that can be routed through UniswapX for gas-free transactions. Other currencies like AAVE, ARB, and USDT often cannot use the UniswapX route.
Furthermore, as the product is still in its early stages, discussions and usage of UniswapX in the market are not high. There have even been users on social media who claimed to have experienced MEV attacks after using UniswapX, although these claims have not been further confirmed.
In any case, as an innovative product that has attracted attention in the DeFi field, the arrival of UniswapX continues to drive DEXs to catch up with the trading experience of CEXs. Undoubtedly, with more market participants and users joining, UniswapX will cover more token pairs.
Can the arrival of UniswapX open up the world of “zero gas” and “MEV-free” transactions in the crypto world? We will wait and see.