Uniswap Foundation Launches Unichain, Its Ethereum Layer 2 Network, to Mainnet

**San Francisco, February 11, 2025** — The Uniswap Foundation today announced the mainnet launch of Unichain, a dedicated Layer 2 blockchain built on the OP Stack and designed to serve as the primary settlement layer for decentralized finance activity across the broader Superchain ecosystem.

Unichain has been in development since mid-2024, with a public testnet drawing significant early participation from developers and liquidity providers. The mainnet deployment marks a structural shift in how the Uniswap protocol approaches execution and settlement, moving core trading activity off Ethereum mainnet and onto a network purpose-built for high-throughput, low-cost swaps. Block times on Unichain run at 250 milliseconds, a meaningful reduction in latency that the Foundation says will improve price execution and reduce the window for harmful MEV extraction.

The network introduces a Validation Network composed of node operators who attest to block validity before finality, adding a layer of economic accountability that standard rollup designs typically lack. Unichain also ships with native support for ERC-7683, a cross-chain intents standard co-developed with Across Protocol, allowing users to move assets and execute trades across supported chains without manually bridging. Liquidity fragmentation has been one of the more stubborn structural problems in multichain DeFi, and the Foundation is positioning Unichain's interoperability architecture as a direct response to that. The chain is also integrated into Optimism's Superchain, meaning it can communicate with Base, OP Mainnet, and other OP Stack networks through shared messaging infrastructure.

UNI token holders retain governance authority over Unichain protocol parameters, consistent with how the Uniswap DAO currently governs the v3 and v4 deployments on Ethereum. The Foundation has indicated that a portion of sequencer revenue will flow back to the protocol treasury, though the specific fee-sharing mechanics remain subject to governance approval. Uniswap v4, which introduced hooks and singleton architecture earlier this year, is deployed on Unichain at launch, giving developers access to the protocol's most recent infrastructure from day one. The Foundation expects the majority of new Uniswap liquidity pools to migrate toward Unichain over the coming quarters as gas cost differentials become apparent to liquidity providers managing positions across chains.

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About the Uniswap Foundation

The Uniswap Foundation is an independent organization that supports the development and long-term sustainability of the Uniswap Protocol and its surrounding ecosystem. The Foundation funds grants, research, and core development work across smart contract infrastructure, developer tooling, and governance. Uniswap Protocol is the largest decentralized exchange by trading volume, having facilitated over $2 trillion in cumulative swap volume since its 2018 launch. Unichain is governed by the Uniswap DAO and built on the OP Stack in collaboration with Optimism. For more information, visit unichain.org.