What Is UNI? A Complete Beginner’s Guide

What is UNI? Well, we will answer to that question here in order for you to find everything you need to know. It was the highest-profile airdrop of recent years, and the UNI token is the UNISWAP native governance token on the Ethereum Blockchain. Before the launch of this token, it was already listed on over a dozen exchanges, so the trading volume of this token reached 5 billion in a single day. Uniswap, the exchange itself, was launched in 2018, and UNI came into the market in 2022.  

Now you must be thinking, what is Uniswap? Uniswap was built on the Ethereum blockchain; it is the most popular automated market maker in the Defi space. It has two versions Uniswap v1, and Uniswap v2. So let us discuss this in detail below about what is Uni, what is Uniswap, and what is Uniswap coin?

What Is UNI?

Uniswap(UNI), as we talk about, is the Uniswap governance token that powers it, it was first launched on 16th September 2020, and it came into existence to exchange Ethereum (ERC-20) token easily. The good thing about this token is that there is no order book or any middleman on it; instead, it is exchanged with the help of liquidity pools. 

The reason behind the need for this token was that it was the community’s demand, and they needed a project that they could handle themselves. Secondly, its rival Sushiswap had it was token launched in August 2020 Uniswap also needed to keep up with its, of course. 

The launch of this token was made with an airdrop given to all the users who were part of this ecosystem before September 1, and it was the most extensive airdrop distribution in the crypto world, which took the Defi industry by storm mainly because of the size of this distribution. 

Some users who received these tokens sell them immediately, and others wait for the price to increase. Some of them received more airdrops than the others, like the SOCKS redeemers, LPs, and users who have been using different Ethereum wallets to trade on the Uniswap space. 

How Was This Token Distributed?

Of 1 billion tokens at the time of the launch of UNI, 587 are currently in the market. These were not all distributed at once, but they plan to do so over four years. 60% decided to go to the community, while the other 40% was kept for the team members, advisors, and investors at Uniswap. 

Let us break it down further to understand the process of distribution. 

• If you have been on the Uniswap platform before the token launch, you could claim 400 UNI. Yes, you heard it right. Moreover, if you have provided a liquidity pool, you are eligible to get even more;
• Users of this token could even farm it while providing a liquidity pool.

Now comes the real question: where can you buy UNI, and How to buy it.

Where Can You Buy UNI?

To answer this question, I would say you can buy it on any exchange that is out there. There is no objection to that, and you can buy it from Coinbase, CoinbasePRO, Binance, OKEx, or any other exchange.

You should use different exchanges if you are a first-timer and then decide and stick with whichever works for you. 

How to Buy UNI?

Once you decide where to buy UNI, it is time to understand how you can buy it. Let us say you want to buy it on Binance because the fees are way lower than Ethereum Network and Uniswap, and it is faster and easier to use. You can also deposit cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies like euros. 

Creating one is easy to do if you do not have an account. You need to deposit a cryptocurrency first or fiat currency to trade UNI. Just go to your spot wallet and click on deposit, then you can deposit Bitcoin. Once that is done, you can start trading instantly. 

After that, click on the market and search for UNI, and there you can see it is being traded against USDT, BTC, BNB, etc. Next, you can trade Ethereum against Bitcoin, and then with Bitcoin, you can trade UNI. After that, just click on trade. If you want to buy UNI, you either do a market order or a limit order. Market orders are more manageable if you are new to them. 

UNI Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages

• It is a governance token that means owners of this token can take part in decisions and how to run it;
• It is undoubtedly one of the largest cryptocurrencies if you see the market cap;
• Users of this token have the control key to the assets;
• Impressive performance.

Disadvantages

• As it is a governance token of Uniswap, its popularity can increase or decrease with the platform;
• Questions circulating whether UNI tokens are security, meaning their airdrop has been unregistered and breached the SEC’s rules.

What Else Should You Know about UNI?

Over the four years, tokens will be released to the different members of the Uniswap ecosystem, the team, community, investors, and advisors, as we talked about it at the beginning. Furthermore, the remaining 43% that has not been airdropped to the community members will be distributed through several initiatives that increase the value of Uniswap. 

These include those LP incentives as well as contributor grants and community initiatives. This is great because, unlike other projects that have just issued their tokens in ICO and left users to their own devices, Uniswap wants to encourage participation and give users a say in protocol direction. 

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What Is UNI – Conclusion

Now it is time to wrap up this with a conclusion. Apart from the UNI token being free crypto, I believe it was precious. You have favorable tokenomics coupled with significant demand for protocol governance. This all adds up to the value proposition of UNI. So if you are thinking of buying a UNI token, I think now is the best time ever.