Uniswap price pumps after a bullish forecast despite the Hyperliquid threat

Uniswap price continued its strong uptrend today, June 17, reaching its highest point since May 22nd, after Standard Chartered analysts boosted their target. UNI has soared in the past seven consecutive days, moving from the year-to-date low of $2.3 to $3.50. 

Standard Chartered delivers bullish Uniswap price prediction

In a report this week, analysts at Standard Chartered said that UNI price was highly undervalued and that its token may jump 10x from the current levels.

The report noted that Uniswap had established itself as a key player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry. Specifically, the bank believes that the tokenization industry is set to grow from $340 billion today to $4 trillion in the next two years. It said:

"If Uniswap can commercialise enough and create significant enough TradFi partnerships to scale, its market cap-to-transaction fees multiple is likely to increase, narrowing the gap with Coinbase.”

Still, while Uniswap retains some market share in the decentralized exchange (DEX) industry, the reality is that its business has faced a major disruption from companies like Hyperliquid, Aster, Lighter, and Grvt.

Data shows that Uniswap handled transactions worth over $48 billion in the last 30 days, much higher than its top peers. PancakeSwap, Aerodrome, and Orca had a volume of $24.4 billion, $18 billion, and $6.4 billion, respectively.

Uniswap’s volume has been in a strong downtrend in the past few months. Its volume peaked at $314 billion in the third quarter of last year, and has dropped in all quarters since then. Its volume this quarter has fallen to $102 billion from $165 billion in Q1.

This slowdown is translating to lower fees and revenues. It has made $116 million this quarter, down from $151 million in Q1 and $298 million in the same quarter last year. 

Uniswap faces a Hyperliquid problem

For a long time, Uniswap was the biggest player in the decentralized exchanges industry. Today, however, its market share has shrunk as competition from perpetual futures trading protocols has jumped.

Most of this competition is coming from Hyperliquid, a company that has disrupted the industry. Data shows that Hyperliquid’s volume jumped to $244 billion in the last 30 days.

This volume has grown as the company has diversified its offerings, including offering tokenized assets. For example, it has become a top venue for trading traditional assets like crude oil, gold, and stocks. Its popularity soared during the Iran war as it became the top venue for trading oil, especially during the weekends.

This growth is translating into higher fees, with TokenTerminal data showing that it made over $900 million in the last 12 months. Uniswap is not even in the top ten of the top-ten fee generators in the industry.

Hyperliquid’s layer-1 network is also beating Uniswap’s layer-2 platform, Unichain. It has over $1.6 billion in total value locked (TVL) and $6.48 billion in stablecoin supply. After experiencing early success, Unichain’s TVL has fallen from $878 million in July last year to $24 million. Its stablecoin supply has tanked to just $142 million.

UNI price technical analysis

Uniswap price chart | Source: TradingView

Uniswap price has gone parabolic in the past few days, crossing the key resistance level of $3.02, its lowest point in April this year. It has also jumped above the 50-day moving average, while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has moved to 70.

Therefore, there is a possibility that the token will pull back as investors book profits. If this happens, the next key target to watch will be at $3.0. A drop below that price will point to further downside, potentially to $2.5.