Unichain TVL Surges 2500% to $318 Million After Liquidity Incentives Go Live

Activity on Unichain, the Layer 2 (L2) blockchain developed by the Ethereum-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap, has exploded over the past week after a $21 million liquidity incentive campaign kicked off on April 15.

According to DeFiLlama data, Unichain’s total value locked (TVL) has surged by 2569% in the last seven days, while its stablecoin market cap has increased by 2429%. Unichain is now the fifth-largest Layer 2 by TVL, according to L2beat.

The growth can be attributed to a multi-asset incentive campaign approved by the Uniswap DAO to boost usage of Uniswap V4 and Unichain. Risk management firm Gauntlet announced the first phase of the three-month-long campaign in an April 15 X post.

Roughly $5 million worth of UNI tokens will be distributed over the first two weeks to liquidity providers across 12 pools, which feature major crypto assets like BTC, ETH and stablecoins, among others.

DeFi users are flocking to Unichain, which currently offers some of the most attractive yields in the market. For example, the WBTC/USDT pool yields a 132% APR, while ETH/USDT offers 117%, according to data from Merkl.

The campaign hasn’t had much of an impact on the UNI token, however. It’s relatively unchanged over the past week and down 23% in the last month, according to CoinGecko.