Uniswap, the world’s largest decentralized crypto exchange, has unveiled a new blockchain protocol UniswapX for trading across automated market makers (AMMs) and other liquidity sources. Uniswap Labs CEO Hayden Adams made the announcement on-stage Monday at the EthCC conference in Paris. According to the press release, UniswapX addresses many of the pain points of on-chain trading and self-custody swapping, such as better prices by aggregating liquidity sources, gas-free swapping, protection against maximal extractable value (MEV), and no cost for failed transactions.
In the coming months, UniswapX will expand to gas-free cross-chain swaps, and is launching in opt-in beta on the Uniswap Labs interface for the main Ethereum network. The company plans to expand to other chains and the Uniswap wallet in the near future. UniswapX looks to solve the problem of liquidity pools drying up by engaging with third-party fillers that fill swaps directly or route users to appropriate AMM pools. These fillers will also cover the gas fees on behalf of swappers, eliminating the need for swappers to own a blockchain’s native network token, such as ETH or MATIC, to participate in trading.
UniswapX also addresses the issue of MEV, wherein network operators capitalize on their ability to preview queued transactions, by redirecting MEV and encouraging fillers to use private transaction relays. This keeps transactions out of sight of MEV bots.