Uniswap Hits $3 Trillion Trading Volume, TVL Drops 50%

Uniswap has achieved a significant milestone by becoming the first decentralized exchange (DEX) to reach $3 trillion in total trading volume. This accomplishment was announced by Hayden Adams, the founder of Uniswap, on May 12 through a post on X. Adams expressed gratitude to the users for their participation and hinted at even greater goals for the future. The announcement was accompanied by an infographic from a Dune Analytics dashboard, illustrating the platform's remarkable growth.

Despite the impressive trading volume, Uniswap's total value locked (TVL) has decreased to around $4.8 billion, which is less than half of its peak in 2021. This decline mirrors a broader pullback in the decentralized finance (DeFi) market. The total TVL in DeFi is now approximately $117 billion, down from a peak of $174 billion in 2021. However, Uniswap's monthly trading numbers remain robust, with over $150 billion in volume each month in 2025. The platform earned roughly $150 million in fees in January, but this amount decreased to just over $60 million by April.

Recent upgrades have been instrumental in maintaining Uniswap's growth. Uniswap v4, launched in January, introduced new features such as flexible trading tools and lower gas costs. Additionally, Unichain, a new layer 2 network built on the OP Stack, was launched in February and has already processed more than $4 billion in volume. Unichain enables faster and more cost-effective trading compared to Ethereum's main network.

Following the Ethereum Pectra upgrade, which went live on May 7, 2025, Uniswap implemented support for EIP-7702. This Ethereum Improvement Proposal allows Externally Owned Accounts to temporarily act like smart contracts during a transaction, enabling features such as transaction batching, gas sponsorship, and smart recovery without migrating to full smart contract accounts.

Uniswap's token, UNI, has seen a 1.4% increase as of the latest update and has risen over 40% in the past week. However, it remains down more than 80% from its all-time high of $44.92, which was set in May 2021. This milestone underscores Uniswap's continued influence and innovation in the DeFi space, despite the challenges faced by the broader market.