Uniswap is probably one of the most popular decentralized exchanges for listing projects, trading, and investing in cryptocurrencies, with over $20B in trading volume.
But a severe bug could cause Uniswap significant issues and is creating problems for those that list there.
The history of Uniswap goes back to 2017.
In a post on Reddit in 2017, Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, suggested coding a decentralized exchange through smart contracts. This type of exchange - called an Automated Market Maker - would run exclusively on the blockchain.
Hayden Adams, formerly at Siemens, was inspired by this idea and created Uniswap, launched in November 2017. Since then, the decentralized exchange has gone through three iterations, and Uniswap launched its own token in September 2020.
But as an exchange that promotes the decentralized self-governing spirit, Uniswap V3 has received mixed reactions. Many claim that it needs to improve its user experience if it is to compete against centralized giants like Binance and CoinBase, and there has been significant criticism towards Uniswap V3 due to the license under which it will operate.
But there's more bad news for Adams' creation.
A bug in the system is making token listings appear as "UNKNOWN" on the platform. Winding Tree and other projects which have recently listed their tokens on Uniswap have been affected by this recent bug. While selling its LIF token, Winding Tree faced anonymity on Uniswap, making it invisible to traders and investors.
"We discovered it in September when we created the pool," Maksim Izmaylov, CEO at Winding Tree, told me.
The impact for Winding Tree has been significant.
"It created lots of problems for our community members," Izmaylov said. "Every time you want to do something with the token on Uniswap, you have to go through so many hoops. And the solution is simple, and we offered the solution to Uniswap back in September 2020."
What's worse is that Uniswap appears not to have made any effort to correct the bug. Although an email for support is listed, there seems to be limited contact with the Uniswap team. The exchange encourages reaching out to its active community on Discord when facing problems on the platform.
"We reached out to Uniswap and offered a solution but haven't received any response," Izmaylov said.
While Coinbase faced an incredible backlash over its tardy customer support early on (with 3-4 week delays between support ticket replies), it has invested heavily in that area. It is now providing timely and helpful support for its users.
Both Coinbase and Binance offer excellent user functions and run under standard KYC framework and regulations. These exchanges are easy and convenient for buyers and sellers, but hardcore crypto developers would prefer to list their tokens on decentralized spaces.
If Uniswap is to keep growing and attracting projects, it will need to address these issues. Winding Tree is already looking for an alternate way forward.
"We'll move the marketplace to an L2 chain or to a completely new chain where fees are not that crazy and drastically improve the UX of the marketplace (high miner fees is a part of this, actually)," Izmaylov said.
"We'll also work on geographically-targeted projects; a big one is in process in Italy, a country that is second in tourism, after France."
Note: I reached out to Uniswap for comment but received no response. Should any be received, I'll update the story.