Bitcoin remains the undefeated no.1 coin in the cryptocurrency market, but for how much longer? As we’ve seen over the past year, its value has plummeted – but this has happened before. Over the last decade, Bitcoin has risen and fallen many times, usually landing again at the top spot. However, this can only happen so many times.
Although still a safe bet, for now, you may want to look at alternative investment options for the future. All good crypto investors will tell you to diversify your portfolio, but with what?
Uniswap, although a relatively new coin, has already made an impact on the crypto scene. Uniswap itself is a decentralized exchange site powered by its native UNI coin. Is it worth investing in the Uniswap platform? Let’s compare BTC and UNI to find the key differences between the coins.
History
Understandably, the history of Bitcoin and Uniswap is markedly different, given that they both emerged at entirely different stages in the development of crypto.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin was the first-ever cryptocurrency, which became available to buy and sell in 2009. This came after the Bitcoin whitepaper, which was issued the year before.
The exact individual behind the invention of cryptocurrency remains a mystery. On paper, the developer gave the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. However, it is unclear whether this referred to one individual or several.
The Bitcoin block was first launched on the 3rd of January, 2009. This is referred to as the genesis block, given that it was the first of its kind.
Bitcoin was first used to carry out a real-life transaction in 2010, and over the decade, it helped establish ‘cryptocurrency’ as a buzzword of the age. Despite a major crash in 2018, Bitcoin has remained the crypto with the biggest market cap.
Uniswap (UNI)
The Uniswap team, led by mechanical engineer Hayden Adams, launched the decentralized exchange platform in 2018. However, the project had been brewing since at least 2016, when the idea of an online automated market maker combined with a decentralized exchange platform was first proposed by Vitalik Buterin.
The project was developed over 2017 and early 2018, during which time it also received financial backing from the Ethereum Foundation.
The Uniswap (UNI) coin became available in September 2020 when Uniswap set the goal of mining over 1 billion coins within the following four years.
In the first few years after its development, Uniswap became one of the most popular decentralized exchange sites. The UNI coin has also become one of the biggest crypto coins in terms of market capitalization and is now available on many other exchange sites, including Coinbase.
What Are They, And Why Were They Created?
Again, Bitcoin and Uniswap come from very different eras and were created to overcome different challenges in the crypto game and financial world at large.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that is widely traded across basically all crypto exchange sites. Much like Bitcoin’s creator, the reasons Bitcoin was created remain unclear. Bitcoin was launched just after the 2007-2009 financial crisis, suggesting that it was a response to this. Established financial institutions had let many people down, so there was a drive to give financial power back to the people.
Plus, financial transactions had taken place online for quite some time by 2008, so it just made sense to establish an online currency.
Uniswap
Uniswap is a crypto exchange platform supported by its native coin, UNI. Uniswap differs from centralized exchanges because it creates smart contracts to create changes between two sellers.
Crypto developers invented both the Uniswap coin and platform to solve the issue of the high costs of buying illiquid assets. “Illiquid” refers to any asset that investors and traders cannot sell without losing value, while “liquidity” means a cryptocurrency or token can be used to buy or sell other digital assets or cash with no difference in price.
Uniswap created liquidity pools to counteract the issues posed by illiquid assets so anyone can become a maker. The Uniswap protocol focuses on facilitating buying and selling without using intermediaries, thus avoiding various transaction fees.
Investors or traders who want to provide liquidity or create a new liquidity pool must connect a Web3 Wallet on Uniswap’s website. Once a user deposits an asset into one of these liquidity pools, they can earn from trading fees.
Price History
Bitcoin and Uniswap are difficult to compare regarding their price histories, given that the former has existed for much longer. Bitcoin has seen the ups and downs of crypto’s establishment, while Uniswap has only lived through the tail end up to the present.
Bitcoin (BTC)
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is worth $20,862.30 (according to crypto statistics provided by CoinMarketCap).
Over the last decade, Bitcoin has been particularly volatile to the rise and fall of the crypto market. Being right in the eye of the storm, it’s hard to separate how well crypto performs as a whole from how well Bitcoin is doing.
The peak for Bitcoin came in November of 2021, when it reached a value of $65,000. This is overwhelmingly higher than Bitcoin’s nadir, which occurred in October 2011, when one Bitcoin was valued at just $0.003.
Uniswap (UNI)
The price of Uniswap currently sits at $6.92, 80% lower than its all-time high, which was $44.97. To date, the lowest Uniswap has ever sold for is $0.87.
Market Cap
Market cap is short for market capitalization, reflecting how much the cryptocurrency is currently worth.
Bitcoin
The market cap of Bitcoin is currently $400,071,102,036.
Uniswap
The Uniswap network coin (UNI) currently has a market cap of $5,183,309,787. We’d recommend checking the cryptocurrency statistics provided by CoinMarketCap for daily market cap updates, as this constantly changes.
Daily Transactions
Daily transactions refer to exactly what the title implies – how many times Uniswap (UNI) and Bitcoin (BTC) have been traded today.
Bitcoin
There have been 248,540 Bitcoin transactions today, according to Y Charts.
Uniswap
The daily transaction count of Uniswap is currently unavailable.
Block Size
If you’re wondering what block size means, it’s the amount of data in which a cryptocurrency stores. A high block size means that the cryptocurrency can perform a high level of transactions per second, while a small block size limits the number of transactions that can occur.
Bitcoin
For being the biggest coin on the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin has a small block size of just 1MB, meaning that the crypto can only store 2,000 transactions.
Uniswap
It can be assumed that UNI tokens meet the average block size capacity of 1.43 MB or somewhere in this area.
Similarities
What makes BTC coins and UNI tokens similar? Let’s find out:
- Uniswap (UNI) coins and Bitcoins (BTC) can be put into a liquidity pool.
- You can swap both UNI tokens and Bitcoins on the Uniswap platform.
- Bitcoin (BTC) and Uniswap are available on leading exchange sites such as Coinbase.
Differences
The main differences between Uniswap and Bitcoin are as follows:
- The Uniswap price is a lot lower than the current Bitcoin price.
- There is no Bitcoin platform where you can trade cryptocurrencies.
- Uniswap has its financial ecosystem, while Bitcoin is merely a means for investors to carry out peer-to-peer lending.
Risks
All coins in the cryptocurrency industry come with some risk involved – Bitcoin and Uniswap are no exception. Here are the main dangers you should consider before liquidity mining for either coin:
Bitcoin (BTC)
- Regulation – Being the most prominent cryptocurrency in the world, Bitcoin could be subject to sudden regulation in your country. China and India are two major countries that recently imposed restrictions on Bitcoins and cryptocurrency.
- Bitcoin is volatile – There’s no guarantee that Bitcoin will remain the most prominent cryptocurrency in the market for years to come. It has crashed before, and it’ll likely crash again. Being at the forefront of all cryptocurrency markets, Bitcoin would probably be the hardest hit if anything widespread happened to the world of crypto. In contrast, Uniswap’s liquidity pools help stabilize the coin’s value.
- Could become strongly taxed – We’re still defining what Bitcoin is and what it means to the economy. It’s decentralized, which makes it difficult to tax for the time being. However, who knows what the future holds for the taxation of crypto assets.
Uniswap (UNI)
- It’s a governance token – UNI does not hold the same value as a utility token. Some will argue it has no real value outside the Uniswap protocol.
- Uniswap has been hacked before – Uniswap has been hacked more than once – both in 2020 and 2022. If you’re using the platform to store your UNI, you risk losing them.
Where To Buy
Both coins are available on various exchange sites, including the following:
Bitcoin
Uniswap
- Coinbase
- Binance
- Kraken
- Gemini
Exchanging Bitcoin For Uniswap
You can’t change Bitcoin for UNI on the Uniswap platform. However, you can complete this exchange on other platforms, such as Coinbase.
Future Plans
The future plans for each coin type are as follows:
Bitcoin
Bitcoin has yet to unveil any major plans other than maintaining its position at the top of the crypto world.
Uniswap
UNI is in safe hands, backed by the ambitious Uniswap team, who wants to expand the platform in the future. Experts anticipate (or hope) that the Uniswap community will soon expand to the Gnosis and Celo chains.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/
https://zipmex.com/learn/uni-price-prediction/
https://www.leewayhertz.com/tokens-on-uniswap-exchange/
https://trading-education.com/bitcoin-vs-uniswap-which-crypto-should-you-buy
https://kriptomat.io/cryptocurrencies/uniswap/what-is-uniswap/