Uniswap’s new layer 2 blockchain Unichain could be a boon for creator Uniswap Labs and holders of the project’s token, potentially earning them close to $500 million a year from fees that would’ve otherwise been paid to the Ethereum network. 

Unichain’s launch would see $368 million previously paid to Ethereum validators in the last year put directly into the hands of Uniswap Labs and likely Uniswap  tokenholders, DeFi Report founder Michael Nadeau said In an Oct. 13 X post.

Uniswap Labs would also be able to capture all Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) on Unchain because it owns all of the validators on the network, instead of allowing Ethereum validators to scalp MEV, he added.

“MEV is estimated to be about 10% of total fees paid on Uniswap ($100m over the last year). They will have the option to share some of this with token holders as well,” Nadeau said.

He added that Uniswap’s liquidity providers could also benefit from the new blockchain by being able to participate in the settlement and MEV capture through staking. 

Nadeau said Ethereum validators and Ether token holders would lose the most following Unichain’s launch, with less burned ETH and fewer fees heading back to the blockchain. 

In the last year, Uniswap has generated over $1.3 billion in trading and settlement fees across five primary chains, including Ethereum, Optimism, BNB Chain, Base, and Polygon. 

Uniswap — the largest decentralized exchange by volume — launched Unichain on Oct. 10, promising faster, cheaper transactions and improved interoperability across various blockchain networks. 

The launch was met with mixed sentiment from decentralized finance (DeFi) pundits, with some claiming that another layer 2 blockchain was unnecessary.

Advocates said Unichain — billed as a layer-2 network made specially for DeFi protocols — would result in a cleaner user experience for the average DeFi user, more concentrated liquidity, and fewer issues with fragmentation across various chains. 

Meanwhile, skeptics found a September 2022 X post from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin which criticized the idea of a layer 2 blockchain from Uniswap.

“Uniswap’s main value proposition is that you can just go and get a trade done in 30 seconds without thinking about it,” Buterin wrote in the post. “A Uniswap chain or even rollup makes no sense in that context. A copy of Uniswap on every rollup does.”