Launched in 2018 by Hayden Adams—who famously taught himself to code after being laid off from his engineering job—Uniswap (UNI) is the world's largest decentralized exchange (DEX) and the pioneer of the Automated Market Maker (AMM) model. Unlike traditional exchanges that use order books to match buyers and sellers, Uniswap utilizes "Constant Product" math ($x \times y = k$) to allow users to trade ERC-20 tokens directly against liquidity pools funded by other users. The native governance token, UNI, was launched in September 2020 via a historic retroactive airdrop—gifted to any wallet that had ever used the protocol—to decentralize ownership of the platform. Today, UNI holders form the Uniswap DAO, which controls the largest treasury in DeFi and votes on critical protocol upgrades, such as the fee structures for Uniswap V3 (known for its capital-efficient "concentrated liquidity") and the modular architecture of Uniswap V4.
