Uniswap Labs debuts NFT marketplace aggregator with $5 million USDC airdrop

Summary:

• The decentralized exchange announced non fungible token trading on Wednesday months after buying Genie, a major NFT aggregator.
• Wednesday’s update features a $5 million airdrop in Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) for Genie users.
• The popular DEX hopes to bridge the gap between crypto exchanges and digital collectible marketplaces.

Uniswap Labs, the startup behind DeFi’s biggest crypto exchange, added support for non fungible token trading as announced on Wednesday. The news comes months after Uniswap bought NFT aggregator platform Genie for an undisclosed sum. 

Crypto exchanges and NFT marketplaces usually operate on separate platforms, with the exception of centralized platforms like Coinbase that have launched NFT marketplaces. Indeed, Uniswap plans to bridge this gap by housing both digital economies on a DEX. 

“NFTs and ERC-20 tokens have largely existed as two separate ecosystems within crypto, but both are essential to growing the digital economy. Launching NFTs on Uniswap is our first step in building more interoperable experiences between the two.”

Users will be able to trade NFTs from a myriad of marketplaces like OpenSea and LooksRare. The DEX also unveils a new open-sourced Universal Router contract they say cuts gas fees by up to 15%. 

Uniswap’s $5 million USDC Genie airdrop

Genie users will receive special perks since Uniswap acquired the startup in June 2022 including airdrops for completed transactions and Genie NFT holders. The airdrop is denominated in Circle USDC stablecoin and will run for 12 months.

Also, the first 22,000 new users who buy an NFT on the DEX will enjoy gas rebates capped at 0.01 Ether (ETH).

The startup behind crypto’s most popular DEX raised a massive $165 million in a funding round led by Polychain in October. DeFi proponents praised the series B at the time, saying it reaffirmed interest in crypto despite inflation, contagion, and slump asset prices.