Uniswap Labs, the company that builds products using the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol of the same name, announced Thursday the launch of a so-called layer 2 blockchain. The new blockchain is called Unichain and, according to the company, will accelerate considerably the time required to transact on its decentralized exchange.
“Unichain will initially have block times of one second, and will later be optimized to achieve block times of 200 to 250 milliseconds. This will feel like a near-instant transaction experience for the user,” Uniswap Labs said in a statement.
Layer 2 blockchains, known as L2, have proliferated in recent years and include services like Arbitrum and Coinbase’s Base. They work by compiling transactions and recording them in batches on the main Ethereum blockchain, a process that minimizes fees and avoids delays due to congestion.
Uniswap Labs’ decision to launch its own L2 is significant because Uniswap, an open source protocol similar to SMTP for email, is the most popular tool for DeFi, which relies on modular Lego-like tools to carry out transactions without a centralized authority. Using the email analogy, Unichain is like Gmail or another client built on the open protocol.
In an interview with Fortune, Mary-Catherine Lader, COO of Uniswap Labs, said Unichain would ultimately make using DeFi less complicated for users and also increase liquidity across the industry. A former banker at BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, Lader predicts that DeFi-style tools will be increasingly adopted by the world of traditional finance.
According to Lader, Uniswap Labs built Unichain with Apple’s adage in mind that building quality software requires quality hardware, and the company’s philosophy is based on simultaneously pursuing the crypto ideals of speed. , low cost and decentralization. Unichain itself is built on L2 technology known as Optimism, which is used by, among others, a popular L2 of the same name and by Base.
Uniswap was created in 2018 by self-taught programmer Hayden Adams, who has since developed a second and third version of the protocol. In late 2022, Uniswap Labs raised a $165 million Series B funding round which, at the time, valued it at around the same amount.
Uniswap created the new L2 blockchain with the help of DeFi research and development organizations Flashbots and OP Labs.
