UNI rises by 50% Surge To Become 8th Largest Ethereum-Based Asset

The native token of decentralized exchange Uniswap (UNI) has increased by up to 50% within the past week. This upsurge has pushed UNI into the top ten crypto assets by market capitalization. Speculation bids for the much-expected V3 overhaul are high, and it has helped UNI to maintain the 8th position in the market.

Within 24 hours, UNI has increased its market cap to $17.52 billion from its previous value of $8.8 billion on March 4.

UNI now the second-largest Ethereum-based asset

Based on the current ranking system of Messari, UNI is now the second-largest Ethereum-based asset by market capitalization, only behind Tether.

UNI’s market cap is now bigger than Ripple’s (XRP) market cap ($17.19 billion) as well as Litecoin’s (LTC) market cap ($13.0 billion)

The token entered the top ten on Friday, which makes it the first DeFi DApp native token to do so.

Yesterday, it is price hit an all-time high of $34, but as of the time of writing, UNI was trading at $33 per token. It’s expected to rise further as speculation transactions grow.

The initial token distribution of UNI tokens was airdropped to liquidity providers added to the 400 tokens distributed to every wallet with DEX in September last year.

The grand entrance of UNI into the top ten crypto assets is coming after the token recorded an all-time monthly trade volume. In February alone, the record was broken three times, which culminated in a monthly all-time high of $31.9 billion.

But it seems the massive stride in trade volume has come to an end, as trading volume reduced slightly within the past few days. However, even with the drop in volume, UNI still represents 50% of all trades on Ethereum-powered DEXs.

UNI’s surge attributed to several factors

The growth of UNI is also coming at a time when there is increased speculation about the upcoming V3 upgrade. Developer of Yearn Finance Andre Cronje recently stated that there has been increased social media activity by Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s lead developer. According to him, it suggests that the V3 launch is very close.

Cronje created the post after Adams opened a Twitter poll asking followers where they are looking to get the details about the Uniswap V3 launch.

UNI’s impressive rise is a result of several factors, as experts have observed. In particular, the record-breaking figures in trading volume contributed massively to the token’s rise. The surge was also caused by speculation regarding the V3 launch.