Uniswap's Layer 2 User Count Is Skyrocketing, Setting New Highs in Both June and July – But There's a Catch

The protocol's trading volume is on a steady downtrend and when subtracting one L2, addresses are actually down.

Uniswap's Layer 2 user count is surging, with new record highs set in both June and July. However, a closer look at the data reveals a potential catch.

According to the latest on-chain metrics, the number of unique addresses transacting on Uniswap's Layer 2 scaling networks soared by 350% in July compared to June. The total count of unique addresses using Uniswap on L2s reached 8.93 million in July, up from 4.93 million in June and 1.82 million in May.

Uniswap's Dune Analytics dataset includes the major L2s such as Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Polygon, ZkSync, and Zora. As the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) by trading volume, Uniswap's L2 user count serves as a key indicator for the broader DEX and L2 ecosystems.

Both June and July saw a significant surge in users, drastically outpacing the previous all-time high of 2.12 million unique addresses set in April.

Despite the parabolic rise in unique users, a different story unfolds when examining Uniswap's monthly protocol volume. The DEX's trading volume has been on a steady downtrend since its all time high of $33.6 billion set in March. The protocol volume declined by 31% to $23.2 billion in June and fell another 12% to $20.5 billion in July. Overall, Uniswap experienced a 39% decrease in volume between May and July.

The spike in users coinciding with the fall in volume could indicate a rise in low value users and is reminiscent of sybil activity. Sybil attacks occur when users attempt to manipulate protocols, usually those that have an upcoming airdrop, by creating numerous pseudonymous identities to game the system. These traders aim to trick the protocols into believing that one user is actually dozens or even hundreds of unique users to receive mass airdrop allocations.

As reported by TokenTerminal on July 25, 80% of Uniswap's monthly active traders are on Coinbase's L2 Base. This skewed user distribution might lead to speculation that users are mass-sybilling Base, anticipating a future token launch.

Furthermore, when subtracting Base from the Dune Analytics' query, Uniswap's unique monthly addresses on L2s have been falling every month since April. While it's unlikely that all of Base activity is due to Sybil attacks, it's prudent to take the 3x increase with a small grain of salt.

The above is the detailed content of Uniswap's Layer 2 User Count Is Skyrocketing, Setting New Highs in Both June and July – But There's a Catch. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!