The number of pending transactions per minute on the Ethereum network jumped shortly after leading decentralized exchange Uniswap announced the launch of its UNI token, coupled with a 400 token airdropped to those who have used the protocol.
The decentralized exchange’s announcement revealed it launched the UNI governance token, with a total of one billion coins set to be distributed over the next four years. Liquidity mining for the governance token is set to only start on Friday, but historical users of the protocol and its liquidity providers can now claim 400 UNI tokens per each address used.
The announcement reads:
· 15% of UNI [150,000,000 UNI] can immediately be claimed by historical liquidity providers, users, and SOCKS redeemers/holders based on a snapshot ending Sept. 1, 2020, at 12:00 am UTC.
As users started interacting with the UNI smart contract address to claim their tokens, the number of pending transactions on the Etheruem network per minute jumped from around 160,000 to over 210,000, according to Etherscan data
Per CoinDesk, merely three hours after the token claims started, over 18,000 transactions were sent to the smart contract address of the UNI governance token. This surging number of transactions to the smart contract address led to an increase in ether gas fees, with the current average gas fee being at 700 gwei ($5.56).
Etherscan data shows, in fact, that the UNI token distribution address has seen users pay $1.4 million in ETH as gas fees when transacting to it, accounting for over 8% of the gas used in the last 24-hour period.
In a tweet, Etherscan CEO Matthew Tan revealed the website saw a traffic peak to levels it was seeing during the ICO bubble.
Crypto Exchanges Rush to List UNI
Several leading centralized trading platforms rushed to list Uniswap’s UNI token shortly after it started being claimed by users. Exchanges like Binance, KuCoin, Poloniex, Coinbase Pro, Huobi, Digifinex, Bithumb, and more all listed the tokens in a few hours.
Popular crypto exchange OKEx stood out not just by listing the token, but by almost immediately launched derivatives contracts so users could either long or short UNI.
Notably, OKEx has seemingly been betting on decentralized finance (DeFi) for some time now, and has already listed over 40 different tokens related to the space in a “DeFi” category on its markets page.
The number of listings is essentially allowing the exchange’s users to access the advantages of the decentralized finance space without having to worry about getting a Web 3 compatible wallet and trusting a smart contract.
The exchange’s CEO, Jay Hao, responded to the controversy surrounding SushiSwap by saying he believes the development of DeFi is a “big event to the entire crypto industry,” and offering to be a multsig key holder.
As CryptoGlobe reported, earlier this month OKEx announced a new interface with DeFi giant Compound Finance, letting users subscribe multiple assets to the on-chain protocol to generate interest-bearing rewards.
The exchange is now offering users a full range of trading pairs in the DeFi space on the spot and derivatives markets. This allows traders to hedge their positions, even if they are actively farming liquidity in DeFi protocols.
Featured image via Pixabay
