Unichain Nears $12B in Trading Volume as Users Flock to Uniswap’s Layer 2

As high gas fees push users toward alternative platforms, Uniswap’s recently introduced Layer 2 network, Unichain, aims to enhance user experience and maintain its competitive edge in the decentralized exchange space.

In fact, the network is already nearing a $12 billion milestone in total trading volume just three months after it hit mainnet.

Unichain’s Rapid Adoption

According to recent figures, Uniswap v4, launched in January, has seen a significant share of its activity shift to Unichain in the past month. In fact, Unichain processed 76% of Uniswap v4’s total volume on May 9th, leaving Ethereum with just 15.5% and even smaller shares for Arbitrum with 4.7% and Base with 2.7%. The latest figure points to the network’s increasing importance in Uniswap’s broader scaling and user adoption roadmap.

Uniswap officially launched Unichain in February this year. Built on the Optimism Superchain, it is designed to offer faster and cheaper DeFi activities. It also aims to deliver one-second block times and up to 95% lower gas fees than Ethereum and supports swapping, bridging, liquidity provision, token launches, lending, and cross-chain trading using the ERC-7683 standard.

The Layer 2 network saw a surge in activity beginning mid-April, coinciding with the launch of a $45 million liquidity incentive program. Data compiled by DeFiLlama showed that its TVL peaked at $800 million by the second week of May before falling to the current level of $627 million. Meanwhile, L2Beat reported that Unichain now ranks as the fourth-largest Layer 2 network by total value locked.

Furthermore, Unichain has recorded a dramatic surge in user activity over the past 30 days, according to new findings from Nansen. The network saw a 3,071% increase in active addresses as it reached 5.9 million – a more than 30-fold rise and the largest percentage gain among all EVM chains tracked. As a result, it even managed to outpace major players like Base and BNB Chain in this metric.

Uniswap Fights Back with Unichain

Uniswap has faced stiff competition from alternatives like Raydium on Solana, as high Ethereum gas costs diverted users during the recent meme coin boom. Now, with Ethereum Layer 2s gaining traction and the launch of Unichain, the leading DEX is working to attract users back by offering significantly lower transaction fees and improved trading speeds.

Besides its strategic focus on the new offering, Uniswap recently hit $3 trillion in aggregate all-time volume, thereby becoming the first decentralized exchange to hit the figure.