Uniswap founder Hayden Adams compared current market conditions to the 2018 bear market when the protocol emerged. While Adams stated that he was extremely optimistic about decentralized finance and Ethereum, he said that today’s outlook reminds us of the period when the perception of Ethereum dropped to historical lows.
Emphasis on DeFi and Ethereum from Adams
Adams stated that at that time, Uniswap and similar DeFi projects continued their development activities and concretely demonstrated the usage areas of Ethereum, which laid the groundwork for DeFi growth in 2020.
While Hayden Adams stated that today’s market environment is similar to the period when Uniswap was born, he emphasized that the outlook for DeFi and Ethereum is quite strong, in his opinion.
This statement came after the token burning data that has accelerated in the Uniswap ecosystem in recent days. According to follow-up data, the protocol burned 134 thousand UNI in 24 hours, thus breaking a new record on a daily basis within the scope of the program.
How does the UNIfication mechanism work?
The final burn move is based on the UNIfication plan adopted by Uniswap Labs and the Uniswap Foundation in late 2025. In this model, protocol fees are first accumulated in on-chain contracts called TokenJar. Parties who want to claim these fees must burn an equivalent value of UNI through a contract called Firepit.
Mini dictionary: TokenJar refers to the contract structure where protocol fees are kept on-chain. Firepit is used as the contract that carries out the UNI burning required to claim these fees.
The burned tokens are then sent to the 0xdead address on Ethereum, thus permanently removing them from circulation. When the UNIfication offer was first announced, the UNI price increased from $4.95 to $9.25 within a week.
With governance proposal number 96, which was accepted in May this year, the fee collection and token burning mechanism was also expanded to BNB Chain, Polygon and Celo. Thus, the number of networks using this system, other than Ethereum, increased to 11.
Product updates and cross-chain expansion
During the same period, Uniswap Labs announced four new features aimed at making the platform easier for a wider user base. In-app wallets, cross-chain swaps, portfolio tracking and multi-chain portfolio views are now available. The company stated that these features are offered without interface fees for exchange transactions.
According to internal research shared by Uniswap Labs, 49.9 percent of new users who traded on Ethereum, Arbitrum and Base for the first time in 2026 made their first transaction via Uniswap. Uniswap has a total of $2.86 billion in assets locked across more than 40 chains. While the total fees accumulated since the platform was launched reached 5.59 billion dollars, the total income to UNI owners through the burn mechanism was 14.15 million dollars.
UNI was trading at $2.47 at the time of publication. This level is more than 92 percent below the peak of $44.97 seen in May 2021. The market value of the token is 1.54 billion dollars and its circulating supply is 622.71 million UNI. Annualized fees are calculated at approximately $882 million, while $1.96 billion of the total locked assets are in Ethereum, $416 million in Base and $198 million in Arbitrum.
