Uniswap Loses 43% of Total Value Locked (TVL) as UNI Farmers Move Elsewhere

Leading decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap today lost its position as the largest DeFi protocol in total value locked (TVL).

The decline is directly linked to the Uniswap (UNI) token liquidity reward program’s closure, which put the DEX under the spotlight in the past few months. Users could earn UNI by providing liquidity to designated pools on Uniswap.

Over $1.1 billion worth of assets were locked to earn UNI tokens, but the program has now ended as scheduled (November. 17). This date was clearly stated during UNI’s launch in September and was another effort to distribute UNI tokens to investors, aside from an initial airdrop to historical users.

From a high of $3 billion in TVL locked earlier this month, the total value locked in the DEX was barely above $1.5 billion at the time of writing.

In the meantime, Maker ($2.34 billion) and Wrapped Bitcoin ($2.07 billion) has taken over as the largest DeFi protocols. Uniswap still maintains third place in the ranking, just ahead of Compound and Aave.

Did SushiSwap Gain From Uniswap’s Decline?

The numbers suggest that SushiSwap, a fork of Uniswap, gained a significant amount of value that moved away from Uniswap. In the last 24 hours alone, SushiSwap recorded an average of 69% growth in assets locked, increasing from $332.92 million to $571.79 million.

The switch to SushiSwap is apparently because the Uniswap competitor still offers SUSHI tokens as an additional incentive to the 0.3% trading fee that liquidity providers get for their contributions to a pool. Uniswap had launched UNI tokens to wade, but with incentives currently dried up, investors have moved on in search of higher yields.

Meanwhile, the Uniswap community, led by a governance proposal by Cooper Turley, is seeking to restore the UNI liquidity mining program. 

UNI was trading at a $3.59 price at press time, a 5% decrease in the last 24 hours.