Bessie Liu

Almost half a year after Uniswap Labs <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-labs-pushes-further-into-nfts-with-genie-acquisition" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">acquired NFT marketplace aggregator</a> Genie, the largest decentralized exchange revealed today that NFT trading will now be made available to all users on its platform.



Users will be able to trade NFTs across eight major marketplaces on Ethereum, making Uniswap one of the largest single on-chain marketplace for digital assets across tokens and NFTs, Scott Gray, the head of NFT product at Uniswap Labs, said.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Staying intact with Uniswap’s brand, the interface is open source, trustless, and users have self custody over their NFTs,” Gray said.</blockquote>



Its new platform will enable users to explore trending NFTs and collections across different marketplaces. The tool will also include a “sweep” feature where users can purchase an entire collection of NFTs through once purchase.



The existing 15,928 Genie users will receive an initial airdrop of $5 million USDC, and gas rebates will be awarded to the first 22,000 NFT users. The gas rebates, capped at 0.01 ETH per user, will begin today and end on Dec.15 and can be claimed for 12 months between Jan.16, 2023 and Jan.15, 2024 through the Uniswap app.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Uniswap NFTs: The road to revenue</h3>



Uniswap Labs has been actively looking into new ways to generate revenue since its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-labs-valued-at-1-6b-after-165m-funding-round" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$1.6 billion fundraise</a> in October.



Although Uniswap Labs received an equity valuation of $1.66 billion, a spokesperson from the company told Blockworks that in its current state, “Uniswap Labs is a pre-revenue company.”



Its latest NFT platform is not looking at immediate revenue. The company is actively looking at ways to iterate its platform “to become the best aggregator for placing offers across all these marketplaces and being able to manage inventory across all these marketplaces,” Gray said.



“A lot of capital inefficiencies in the NFT market still exist, and we have a few more months of work to solve them and move onto the next set of problems in the NFT space.”



The NFT marketplace is just one of many initiatives launched by the company. Uniswap governance has also been experimenting with implementing a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-fee-switch-pilot-likely-to-go-ahead" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fee switch</a>, where the protocol would receive a tenth of select liquidity pool fees — cutting into liquidity provider revenue.&nbsp;



The latest establishment of Uniswap Foundation, a separate entity to Uniswap Labs, is also looking at ways to provide grants to community projects that will grow the ecosystem over the next few years.



“As we consider future revenue models, we want to empower users and earn their business,” a Uniswap spokesperson said.



Updated on Nov. 30 at 9:45 am ET: Uniswap governance may implement a fee switch, not Uniswap Labs.



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Genie

Uniswap Taps Into NFTs as It Looks To Be Financially Sustainable

Jocelyn Yang

<div id="highlights-block_62b2375fe3788" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Uniswap Labs announced it has acquired NFT marketplace aggregator Genie</li>
 <li>The deal will enable Uniswap to add functionality so the web app can buy and sell NFTs across major marketplaces</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Uniswap Labs <a href="https://uniswap.org/blog/genie" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> Tuesday it has acquired NFT marketplace aggregator Genie in a move that will enable the developer of the Uniswap decentralized crypto trading protocol to further incorporate NFT (non-fungible token) functionality into its product range. 



The acquisition will enable the firm to incorporate NFT marketplaces into the Uniswap&#8217;s web app and to “integrate NFTs into our developer APIs and widgets, making Uniswap a comprehensive platform for users and builders in [Web3],” the company said in a statement. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">1/ The Uniswap Universe is expanding 🦄 In pursuit of our mission to unlock universal ownership and exchange, we’re excited to share that we’ve acquired <a href="https://twitter.com/geniexyz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@geniexyz</a> — the first NFT marketplace aggregator — expanding our products to include both ERC-20s and NFTs 🧞‍♂️ <a href="https://t.co/vESlbE3kvy">pic.twitter.com/vESlbE3kvy</a>&mdash; Uniswap Labs 🦄 (@Uniswap) <a href="https://twitter.com/Uniswap/status/1539306956002820096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



As a part of the acquisition, Uniswap will also airdrop USD Coin (USDC) to Genie users who used the marketplace more than once before April 15 and to those who hold a GENIE:GEM NFT, the company <a href="https://twitter.com/Uniswap/status/1539306970653806592" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>. The airdrop will launch in August and can be claimed for up to 12 months. 



The further expansion of Uniswap, one of the world’s most popular decentralized exchanges, into the NFT market could threaten other NFT marketplaces by enabling developers to integrate directly into a market-leading exchange.&nbsp;



The company first ventured into NFTs in spring 2019 when it launched Unisocks, an NFT liquidity pool backed by real-world assets, according to the statement. 



The acquisition was made by Uniswap Labs and has no impact on the Uniswap Protocol, Uniswap Governance or the UNI token, the statement added. 



A spokesperson for the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.



In May, the exchange hit <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/uniswap-hits-1t-trade-volume-milestone/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more than $1 trillion worth of crypto trades</a> since its launch in 2018. About <a href="https://info.uniswap.org/#/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$3.34 billion worth of cryptocurrency</a> is currently locked inside the exchange.



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