Uniswap

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at crypto asset manager Bitwise, said in a blog post on August 12 that crypto valuations could at least double. According to Hougan, crypto assets beyond bitcoin are becoming a revenue-driven market, with network activity increasingly reflected in the value of native tokens. He noted that investors have not yet priced in this shift, and some crypto assets are undervalued. He cited Hyperliquid, Uniswap, Aave, Pump.fun, and Lighter as protocols that buy back tokens with fees or remove them from circulation. For example, Hyperliquid used about 99 percent of its roughly 800 million dollars in revenue last year to buy back and burn its native token HYPE, and has burned a cumulative 1.3 billion dollars worth. Hougan expects decentralized finance applications and other layer-1 networks to adopt similar revenue-generation mechanisms over the next 12 to 24 months. However, he cautioned that token holders do not have legal claims to cash flows like shareholders, and tokenomics can change. If the link between revenue and price becomes established, crypto assets could be valued using metrics closer to equities, further expanding room for institutional participation.

Uniswap launched Pools.trade, a token-launch platform built on Robinhood Chain and powered by its v4 protocol, marking its direct entry into the competitive launchpad market. The platform charges no launchpad fee, features permanently locked liquidity, and autocompounds the 0.25% LP fee back into the pool, split 20% to the token creator and 80% into the liquidity mechanism. It offers instant and crowd launch options, with day-one support across the Uniswap web app, wallet, trading API, and third-party venues including Bitget, Fomo, GMGN, and OKX Wallet. Founder Hayden Adams noted that traders discovered early smart contracts before the interface went live, pushing over $150 million in volume and forcing the team to support both test and final versions. Robinhood Chain has already seen DEX volumes rebound 50% from local lows, with Pools capturing 50% market share by launchpad volume and 40% of new tokens launched.

Uniswap Labs has introduced a new trading standard called Permissioned Pools on version 4 of the decentralized exchange Uniswap, designed for regulated assets. This mechanism enables trading of assets that require restricted investor access, such as tokenized funds and securities, by embedding eligibility verification directly into the pool itself. Launch partners include Superstate, Securitize, and Dowgo. Permissioned Pools leverage the hooks extension mechanism of v4 to check an issuer-managed allowlist with every swap, ensuring that only approved wallets can trade or provide liquidity. Verification is performed at the protocol level rather than on the front end. This announcement further advances the trend of on-chain trading infrastructure for regulated assets, following developments such as BlackRock's BUIDL fund integration with UniswapX. As Japan also considers DeFi legal frameworks as a policy issue, this could serve as a reference example of using decentralized infrastructure while issuers retain control.