Uniswap Matches Coinbase's Crypto Trading Volumes — Brian Armstrong Says 'Story Is More Complex'

Trading volume on decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap UNI/USD nearly equals that of Coinbase Global Inc COIN.

What Happened: A Monday report from crypto market data provider Kaiko detailed how Uniswap’s market share of volume relative to Coinbase has surged from 27% to nearly 50% since January. 

Analysts attributed this strong shift in market structure to Ethereum ETH/USD transaction fees dropping to a two-year low.

“Uniswap’s relative increase in volumes could also be related to the growing role that DEXs play in providing liquidity for stablecoin swaps, particularly important following TerraUSD’s collapse and Tether’s continuing discount to the Dollar,” Kaiko analysts wrote in the report.

Diving into DEX market share, we can see that Uniswap actually accounts for between 80-90% of total daily volume (on Ethereum). pic.twitter.com/pOvgLuiloP

— Clara Medalie (@Clara_Medalie) July 18, 2022

Kaiko’s director of research Clara Medalie highlighted that Uniswap’s rising trading volumes were still negligible compared to the centralized exchanges on the broader crypto market, including centralized exchanges like Binance. 

See Also: Coinbase Price Target Cut By Mizhuo: Analysts See 'Problematic Trend'

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong weighed in on Kaiko’s assessment, saying that the “story is more complex.”

In other words, for the Uniswap portion of the graph, a bunch of those orders are coming through Coinbase!
So the story is more complex. Your central point I agree with though, which is that DEXes are growing nicely. Coinbase loves DEXes and will continue integrating with them.

— Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) July 19, 2022

Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, COIN closed 9.07% higher on Monday.

Bitcoin BTC/USD rallied to an intra-day high $22,000 of $22,795 and Ethereum ETH/USD surged to $1,607.

Uniswap’s native token UNI rallied 10% to an intra-day high of $7.71.