Uniswap Rolls Out Swap Fees to Fund Growth

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Decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) Uniswap announced today that it will begin charging trading fees on certain tokens including ETH and USDT. The fees, which go into effect tomorrow, will be set at 0.15% per trade.

Uniswap Labs CEO Hayden Adams shared the update on Twitter, framing the decision as a way to sustainably fund the company’s development efforts. Uniswap Labs created the popular DEX protocol Uniswap, which has historically been entirely feeless.

ETH, USDC, wrapped ETH, USDT, DAI, wrapped BTC, agEUR, GUSD, LUSD, EUROC, and XSGD are among the tokens that will be subject to fees, according to Uniswap’s support page.

I work in crypto because of the immense positive impact I believe it can have on the world, removing gatekeepers and increasing access to value and ownership.

I’m proud of the ways @Uniswap Labs has contributed to that effort and want to make sure we’re creating sustainable…

— Hayden Adams 🦄 (@haydenzadams) October 16, 2023

The introduced fees will apply only to trades made through Uniswap’s web and mobile interfaces. The underlying Uniswap protocol smart contracts, which are autonomous and decentralized, will remain free of fees.

“I built the protocol to be a permissionless and decentralized public good,” wrote Adams. “Users have countless choices of ways to use it. This interface fee is one of the lowest in the industry, and it will allow us to continue to research, develop, build, ship, improve, and expand crypto and DeFi.”

The move diverges from Adams’ traditional stance favoring entirely free systems. However, he concluded, “I want to make sure we’re creating sustainable systems to power this work.”

Uniswap’s UNI token is trading flat at about $4.1 over the last 24 hours, shifting only 0.4% up, according to CoinGecko.

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