Decentralized finance (DeFi) exchange Uniswapâs native token uni (UNI) broke $15 per token on Coinbase Wednesday morning. Itâs up more than 92% in one week and up 1,300% since the token debuted in September 2020, according to CoinGecko at press time.
Valued at $4.2 billion, Uniswapâs UNI has the highest market cap of any DeFi token on the market, according to research firm Messari.
The governance token has been caught up in bitcoinâs 2020-21 bull run along with other DeFi tokens. At $25.1 billion, DeFi Pulseâs Total Value Locked (TVL) metric â similar to assets under management (AUM) â is up nearly $10 billion from Jan. 1. TokenSetsâ DeFi Pulse Index, which measures a suite of DeFi token prices, is also up 136% on the year.
A governance token, UNI holders can vote on the direction of Uniswap version 2 such as how the Uniswap treasury will be spent. The exchangeâs weekly volume has also surpassed its impressive initial run during âDeFi summer.â During the first three weeks of January, volume averaged some $5.6 billion while available liquidity on the exchange consistently sat above $3 billion, according to info.uniswap.Â
Those figures are even better than Uniswapâs summer run, which saw the exchange briefly surpass trading volumes on soon-to-IPO Coinbase. Not bad for a unicorn.
Read more: Uniswap Is the Number One Gas Guzzler on Ethereum
At the time, Uniswap conducted whatâs called a token âairdropâ to anyone who had ever used the exchange before. The token drop was in response to rival exchange SushiSwap forking Uniswapâs codebase and trying to draw away users with a new token, SUSHI, in what is now called âvampire mining.â Each nominal user was given 400 UNI tokens amounting to 60% of the 1 billion UNI minted. Each airdrop is now worth about $6,000; it was jokingly referred to at the time as cryptoâs own stimulus check. SUSHI is also up 177% over the last 30 days, according to Messari.
Uniswap investors, advisers and team members are also up big after an initial allocation of the tokens, although a four-year vesting schedule remains in place. According to a Uniswap blog post, 21% or 212,660,000 UNI (at press time: $3.2 billion), were allocated for current and future team members. An additional 18% or 180,440,000 UNI ($2.7 billion) were set aside for investors plus 0.69% or 6,900,000 UNI ($103.5 million) for advisers.
Uniswap, whose core team is based in Brooklyn, N.Y., raised $11 million in a Series A backed by Andreeson Horowitz, Paradigm, Union Square Ventures and VersionOne.Â
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams declined to comment.
Disclosure: This reporter holds a small UNI allocation from the initial airdrop.