Uniswap holders ditch Ethereum for BNB PoS Chain to deploy V3 protocol

Holders of Uniswap (UNI) have decided to deploy the third version of the decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol on BNB Chain, a rival of the Ethereum network.

In a proposal posted on Jan. 17, Ilia Maksimenka, the CEO of the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Plasma Finance, highlighted reasons why the Uniswap v3 protocol should be deployed to the BNB Chain. Maksimenka wrote:

“We believe this is the right moment for Uniswap to deploy on BNB PoS Chain, for many reasons (one of them is License expiration).”

After the discussion on the governance forum, the Uniswap community conducted a “temperature check” poll to see if the community approves of the proposal. 80% of the votes came from those in favor of the deployment while the remaining 20% voted against the update.

Blockchain software firm ConsenSys supported the move. According to Cameron O’Donnell, the DAO Governance Strategist at ConsenSys, despite centralization concerns surrounding BNB Smart Chain, the firm views the brand of the protocol as “standalone and not beholden to any particular chain.” O’Donnell explained:

“Regardless of personal views, Uniswap entering the BSC market will provide current and future users with a secure and established medium for decentralized exchange.”

In addition, the ConsenSys executive also said that the firm believes that it’s important for Uniswap to be “chain agnostic” to better serve all users within the Web3 space. 

Following the approval of the governance proposal, the Plasma Finance team estimates that the deployment of the necessary smart contracts to the BNB Chain may take around 5 to 7 weeks.

Related: BMW taps Coinweb and BNB chain for blockchain loyalty program

On Dec. 22, BNB chain surpassed the Ethereum network in terms of unique addresses. BSC Scan data showed that the blockchain has 233 million which is more than the 217 million unique addresses in Ethereum. However, while the chain claims to be “the largest layer 1 blockchain,” the numbers are far from the Bitcoin network’s 1 billion unique addresses.