Uniswap opens waiting list for browser-based wallet extension. UNI is up 51% for the week.

Uniswap Labs has announced that the waitlist for its new browser-based wallet extension, Uniswap Extension, is now open only to people with a uni.eth username, obtainable through the Ethereum Name Service (ENS).

Introducing Uniswap extensions 🦄

It is the first wallet in your browser’s sidebar.

No more pop-ups. There is no longer a trading window.

Waiting list opens today 👇 pic.twitter.com/yNNgiju5zj

— Uniswap Labs 🦄 (@Uniswap) February 27, 2024

The announcement comes days after the Uniswap Foundation, the non-profit group that oversees the development of the Uniswap protocol, announced that it would release the decentralized exchange’s V4 upgrade by the third quarter of 2024. This upgrade builds on Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade and is consistent with Uniswap’s focus on self-custodial and decentralization.

The default web browser extension allows you to send, receive, buy, and exchange tokens directly within your web browser. This simplifies the Web3 experience for decentralized exchanges by eliminating the need to access it from a separate app or log in from another wallet like MetaMask.

According to Uniswap Labs, the extension is “the first wallet to live in the browser sidebar” and no longer requires pop-ups or transaction windows. Initiatives like this can be seen as an effort to eliminate user dependence on third-party services for core functionality, with the goal of significantly increasing accessibility as the scope of the decentralized finance sector expands.

To date, over 100,000 uni.eth subdomains have been claimed for free through the Uniswap mobile app, available for both iOS and Android users. However, your username can only be used in Uniswap Wallet version 1.21.1 and above.

This development follows an announcement made by the Uniswap Foundation a week ago. proposal Fundamentally changes the reward system for staking and delegation. In this proposal, Uniswap seeks to address concerns about protocol stagnation by prioritizing rewards for “active, engaged, and thoughtful” users.

Additionally, the decentralized exchange recently launched general deployments of Uniswap v2 on Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, Base, Binance Smart Chain, and Avalanche, enabling exchanges and liquidity pool creation directly from the native interface.

UNI, the protocol’s native token, has gained 51.2% over the past week. Reading CoinGecko’s data, we can see a significant change in trading volume on decentralized exchanges between February 23rd and 24th. Trading volume on the DEX suddenly hit $2 billion, up from a 24-hour average of $105 million. By February 25, this amount had decreased to $1.5 billion, with current data showing $539 million.

This change in trading volume reflects the increase in the protocol’s market capitalization from $5.5 billion to $8.5 billion over the same period shown in the chart above.