Uniswap founder: AMMs will dominate the biggest markets — and tokenization is the engine
Hayden Adams publishes his first piece since 2019: 'Correlated Pairs' — how AMMs won the long tail and will reorganize the biggest markets once assets are tokenized.
Highlights
- Uniswap has settled over $4.6T and pushed DEXs from <1% to >20% of centralized spot volume
- Comparison with 1976 index funds ('Bogle's folly') — tokenization's folly moment is ending
- SEC approved Nasdaq and NYSE for tokenized shares; DTCC ran a live trial in July
- Onchain liquidity organizes into correlated pairs (ETH, SOL, stablecoins) — correlation deepens liquidity
- Tokenization makes markets programmable — breaking traditional market makers' bundle (Citadel)
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams published his first long-form piece since 2019: a deep defense of AMMs (automated market makers) dominating the world's largest financial markets — with tokenization as the catalyst. The article has 428K views.
The central thesis
Adams compares tokenization's moment to the index fund launch in 1976 — called 'Bogle's folly' and today owning most American assets. Now, with the SEC approving Nasdaq and NYSE for tokenized shares and DTCC running live trials, tokenization's 'folly moment' is ending.
What tokenization changes
For Adams, tokenizing isn't just 'faster infrastructure': it makes markets programmable — changing which markets exist, who makes them, and what they trade against. Uniswap has settled over $4.6 trillion in volume and pushed DEXs from under 1% to over 20% of centralized spot volume.
Correlated pairs
The article's key: onchain liquidity organizes into 'correlated pairs' — Ethereum assets trade against ETH, Solana assets against SOL, stablecoins among themselves. Since LPs win when assets move together, correlation deepens liquidity. When the world's assets get tokenized, the biggest markets will reorganize the same way.
Why it matters
The article is the vision of the builder behind the world's largest DeFi protocol on markets' future: breaking traditional market makers' 'bundle' (like Citadel) through layered competition. For Radar, it connects with Finematics' DeFi renaissance video.