TLDR:
- Uniswap’s share of the USDC-USDT pair fell from 58% to 36% while its weekly volume held steady.
- Uniswap’s share of trades above $1M dropped from 85% to 44%, while Fluid rose from 10% to 43%.
- Metric grew from 0.6% to 14% of pair volume and now holds 28% of trades between $100K and $1M.
- Active depth in Uniswap’s main pool fell from about $900K to $310K per bp between 15 and 28 October.
Uniswap market share in the USDC-USDT pair fell from 58% to 36% over five weeks. The pair is Ethereum’s most traded decentralized exchange market, with about $480 million in daily volume.
That figure is nearly double the volume of USDC-WETH. Weekly pair volume grew from roughly $2.3 billion to more than $3.3 billion.
Uniswap did not lose volume itself, as its weekly total held between $1 billion and $1.3 billion. Rival venues absorbed the growth instead.
Where Uniswap Lost Ground
Analyst Tom Wan outlined the shift in a post on X. Metric rose from 0.6% to 14% of pair volume within five weeks. Aero went from 0% to 6%, while Fluid held steady between 20% and 28%. The pair’s weekly growth of roughly $1 billion went to venues outside Uniswap.
Large trades account for most of the loss. Uniswap’s share of trades above $1 million fell from 85% to 44%. Over the same period, Fluid climbed from 10% to 43% in that bracket. Fluid’s gain of 33 points came alongside Uniswap’s drop of 41 points.
Mid-sized orders showed a similar pattern. In the $100K to $1M range, Uniswap dropped from 36% to 21%. Metric rose from 7% to 28% in the same bracket. Together, these figures show the decline was concentrated in larger orders.
Small trades changed less. Uniswap’s share under $10K moved from 50% to 44%, and it remains the leader. Metric also grew there, from 7% to 16%. Even so, Uniswap market share declined across every trade size bracket.
Why Depth Drove the Shift
Wan ruled out fees as the cause of the lower Uniswap market share. Uniswap’s USDC-USDT pools charge 0.07 to 0.12bp, already among the lowest. Its stable-pair hook is not the reason either, since it was set up the same way at 58%.
Wan linked the Uniswap market share loss to depth at the live price during volatility. In the second half of October, USDT slipped from near par to 8 to 15bp below USDC. Arbitrage moved Uniswap’s price, but LP liquidity stayed in the ranges LPs had chosen.
Active depth in the main pool fell sharply. It went from about $900K per basis point on 15 October to roughly $310K on 28 October. Aero also entered Ethereum during that period and captured about 6% of overall trading volume.
Other venues were less affected. Fluid draws depth from its lending vaults around a center price it can move. Metric’s market makers quote from their own inventory at the live price. Both keep size where trades occur, so aggregators send large orders there.
