As one of the first and largest Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges, Uniswap pioneered the concept of an automated market maker, which other decentralized exchanges are based on. Instead of using order books, Uniswap aggregates liquidity through pre-funded and user-funded liquidity pools (LPs).  First launched in 2018 by CEO Hayden Adams, Uniswap's ecosystem has now further expanded to include applications such as stablecoins, governance systems, and analytics platforms.