Number
Uniswap: $10B/week in trading volume with under 35 employees
Shaan's pitch for Uniswap: it does roughly $10 billion a week in trading volume with fewer than 35 employees, was only 2.5 years old, and was on pace for over $1B in revenue. By contrast Coinbase took 8 years and 1,000 employees to hit $1B revenue.
$10000M
Weekly trading volume · USD/week
“What if I told you that this company is doing $10 billion a week in trading volume? And what if I told you it was doing that with less than 35 employees? What if I told you that it took Coinbase 8 years and 1,000 employees to get to $1 billion in revenue? I told you that Uniswap is only 2.5 years old, has less than 50 employees, and is on pace to do over $1 billion in revenue this year.”
Fact
How a decentralized exchange works: anyone can be the liquidity provider
Shaan explains Uniswap's mechanism: unlike a centralized exchange where the company is the market maker holding reserves, a DEX lets any third party deposit money as a liquidity provider and earn a share of trading revenue, creating a three-sided market.
“What, what decentralized exchanges do, what DEXs do, that's what, that's what they're called, is you have a buyer, you have a seller, and then you have this group in the middle that I can also come in and be a liquidity provider. So I can just go give Uniswap some money. And I can earn a portion of the revenue that they have, that they make just by providing liquidity into the pool.”
Number
Stablecoin liquidity pools paid 8-15% (and early Uniswap pools topped 100%)
Furqan explains why he provides liquidity in aligned pairs to avoid impermanent loss, then cites the yields: a USDC/DAI stablecoin pool earning 8-15% for over a year, with early Uniswap pools on good assets exceeding 100%.
$15
Annual yield providing liquidity to a USDC/DAI stablecoin pool · percent/year
“So like two stablecoin pools, a USDC and DAI pool that does anywhere from like 8% to 15%, and that's been like that on the low end of the spectrum for the last year plus.”