In this article, I’ll be discussing the recent announcement of Unichain, a new layer 2 blockchain by Uniswap, and why I believe it’s a positive development for the Ethereum L2 ecosystem. It’s not a secret that the Ethereum L2 ecosystem is already quite large, with many complaining that there are too many L2s attempting to distinguish themselves from one another. However, I’m personally a believer in the mission behind the Superchain, which unites many Ethereum L2s under one purpose and is all built on the open source OP Stack. Examples of chains built on OP Stack and a part of the superchain ecosystem include Base L2 by Coinbase, Zora Network by ZORA, and Celo. With Uniswap being one of the most important and largest companies in all of crypto, I’m going to discuss why I believe Unichain is a positive not just for Uniswap but also for the superchain and broader Ethereum L2 ecosystem.
Uniswap is one of if not the premiere multi-chain DEXs in the crypto space, and having their own L2 in Unichain will only bolster their already incredible progress in making the world a better place through decentralization. Unichain’s testnet is already live to give users a feel of what the chain will be like, and it’s clear their team is full of world-class talent that’s constantly innovating. It was great to see all of the contributors to Unichain, starting with the inventor of the Uniswap protocol and current Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams, and then other leaders in the space such as Karl Floersch from OP Labs and Dan Robinson from Paradigm. Seeing talented individuals come together for a greater purpose with regards to building Unichain was undoubtedly an awesome observation. At the core of Unichain are fast blocks (250 ms), cross-chain interoperability, and a decentralized validator network; it aims to be the home for liquidity across chains.
Unichain will order transactions through a trusted execution environment (TEE), which means blocks will be filled even faster without interference before being sent to the sequencer. Unichain will feature incredibly fast transaction processing without compromising security, and I’m excited for mainnet to go live hopefully sooner than later. While some individuals feel that all of the L2 activity on ETH hurts ETH L1, I personally disagree as ETH acts as a settlement network for all chains powered by the OP Stack and ETH is still utilized as a gas asset on these chains. While I understand the points being made from the crowd that’s worried about too many L2s, the vast majority of user activity is stemming from dapps that are operated on L2s, and that ultimately brings more users to the broader Ethereum ecosystem.
So - why is Unichain a positive for the broader Ethereum L2 ecosystem? The answer is simple: Unichain is built directly on top of the superchain, and they’re improving the L2 ecosystem through the notable additions their team developed. You can read about those new additions right here in a Twitter post from Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams:
I’m personally excited to see the development of Unichain as I believe it will only be a positive progression for the ETH L2 ecosystem as Uniswap itself is already such a large and trusted company in the space. I’m looking forward to seeing more innovation from Uniswap in the future, and it was certainly a major announcement from the company during a time where there’s a lot of FUD surrounding L2s. However, if anyone can get the job done, it’s the incredible team at Uniswap, and don’t be surprised to see Unichain succeed in a big way from day one once mainnet goes live. Thank you for reading this article and be sure to subscribe to stay up to date with the latest news in crypto.
