Uniswap Teams With Crypto Fintech MoonPay, Hopes To Attract Mainstream Investors

Decentralized crypto exchange Uniswap UNI/USD has partnered with MoonPay to accept credit and debit card purchases.

What Happened: Uniswap, which runs on the Ethereum ETH/USD blockchain, stated: “Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are the safest way to trade digital assets compared to their centralized counterparts. With self-custodial wallets, permissionless and immutable protocols, and a transparent public ledger, DEXs have built-in user protections."

A major barrier to DeFi adoption has been the onboarding experience, compelling users to store their centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs) for convenience, "despite the risks," the company explained.

Users will need to verify their identity on MoonPay, a fintech company that builds payments infrastructure for crypto.

Credit cards from major banks and bank transfers are supported, though availability varies depending on the region. Bank transfers are only available for most of the U.S., Brazil, SEPA, and the U.K.

Why It Matters: By reducing barriers to adoption on Uniswap, the company is hoping to attract more mainstream investors outside the crypto community and turn recent CEX bad news into a netgain.

The news comes at a time when centralized crypto exchanges continue to fail, from the great splash of the FTX FTT/USD failure, to the ripple effect on entities like BlockFi, Three Arrows Capital, and Voyager Digital, which have all suffered bankruptcy.

Uniswap is promoting their decentralized status and self-custody as more secure solutions for customers.

2/ Self-custody is still the safest way to participate in crypto.

We wanted to ensure that all of our users, and users to come, have a safe and secure way to buy crypto— without having to depend on centralized intermediaries.
— Uniswap Labs (@Uniswap) December 20, 2022