Overnight, Bitcoin experienced slight fluctuations around $30,000, while UNI steadily rose and is now close to $6.
During the Sunday private board meeting, a member asked about the comparison between Uniswap (UNI) and Arbitrum (ARB). Both projects are undoubtedly of high quality, otherwise, the comparative analysis would be meaningless.
In terms of tokenomics, Uniswap will complete its unlock in the next two years [1], while Arbitrum has just started [2]. Their distribution models are almost identical:
Team + VCs: 40% (UNI) vs. 44.4% (ARB)
DAO (Community): 43% (UNI) vs. 42.8% (ARB)
Initial airdrop: 15% (UNI) vs. 12.7% (ARB, including 11.6% personal user airdrop + 1.1% ecosystem project donations)
Regarding business maturity, Uniswap still firmly holds its position as the leading DEX and continues to consolidate its leadership. Its commitment to decentralization enhances its anti-fragility. Currently, Arbitrum leads the L2 track, but other L2 solutions, such as the more established Optimism, are fiercely competing, and there’s also a possibility of zk technology disrupting the optimistic track (although Arbitrum can pivot with sufficient capital). L2 bridging still faces significant centralization control issues .
Uniswap certainly offers more certainty, while Arbitrum has greater uncertainty (which is not necessarily a bad thing, as uncertainty implies growth potential).
In terms of development potential, some view Uniswap as just another DEX on Ethereum, while Arbitrum is a fundamental layer (according to Ethereum’s development strategy, L2’s importance will increase over time). However, Uniswap acts as a user gateway and has the opportunity to span across all chains, becoming a “super gateway” (reminiscent of the importance of gateways in the internet era). Even with UniswapX, gas fees from various underlying chains (including L1 and L2) will be “shielded,” allowing users to transparently accept UniswapX’s global scheduling without perceiving the individual chains. On the other hand, Arbitrum serves as an ecological infrastructure, allowing various applications to run on it. However, based on industry development history, trading is the most significant and inflexible demand (as evident from the market position and profitability of centralized exchanges).
Nevertheless, fundamentally evaluating a project comes down to its ability to continuously solve problems. This is something that 99% of people would agree with. However, My insight is that the ability to ask the right questions is even more critical.
Traditional education is about limited proposition contests, which are already challenging. Technological innovation involves open proposition contests, which are even more difficult. If the only requirement is the ability to solve problems, how can a team of three to five people compete with well-funded, well-staffed, well-educated, well-connected, and well-resourced giants or star teams?
If the sole capability is to develop a payment system, how could Satoshi Nakamoto, a single individual, create a product that surpasses the payment platforms produced by large corporations?
Bitcoin’s success is attributed to the fact that Satoshi Nakamoto asked a fundamentally different question: How to create a decentralized payment system? To answer and solve this question, a completely different set of skills and even consciousness is required. This led to Satoshi Nakamoto forging a unique path while the giants continued along a conventional route.
Hence, when evaluating projects, it’s crucial to observe the team’s ability to consistently ask the right questions. Without asking the right questions, no matter how much funding or how illustrious the lineup, be it 996 or 007, it will all be in vain.
The Uniswap team demonstrates the ability to continuously ask the right questions. This is evident from their transition from Uniswap V2 to V3.
It took one year between Uniswap V2’s launch in the second quarter of 2020 and V3’s launch. During this year, numerous copycats and forks of Uniswap flooded the market, but none proposed increasing liquidity efficiency by truncating the range while maintaining the xy=k formula. It wasn’t until the introduction of Uniswap V3 that people realized this innovation. Uniswap came from behind. This is the advantage their ability to ask the right questions brought.
As this year unfolds, both V4 and X demonstrate that the Uniswap team’s depth of understanding of problems remains unchanged. This instills confidence in us as we navigate through market fluctuations.
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