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What Drives Liquidity on Decentralized Exchanges? Evidence from the Uniswap Protocol

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Listed:
  • Brian Z. Zhu
  • Dingyue Liu
  • Xin Wan
  • Gordon Liao
  • Ciamac C. Moallemi
  • Brad Bachu

Abstract

We empirically study liquidity and market depth on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), identifying factors at the blockchain, token pair, and pool levels that predict future effective spreads for fixed trade sizes on Uniswap v3 pools. Introducing the v2 counterfactual spread metric, a novel criterion that assesses the degree of liquidity concentration in pools using the ``concentrated liquidity'' mechanism, we decompose the effect of each factor on market depth into two channels: total value locked (TVL) and concentration. We further explore how external liquidity from competing DEXs and fillers with private inventory on DEX aggregators influence market depth. We find, for moderately-sized swaps, that (i) gas prices, returns, and volatility affect spreads primarily through concentration, (ii) internalization of swaps by private liquidity sources affects spreads primarily through TVL, and (iii) fee revenue, markout, and DEX competition affect spreads through both channels.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Z. Zhu & Dingyue Liu & Xin Wan & Gordon Liao & Ciamac C. Moallemi & Brad Bachu, 2024. "What Drives Liquidity on Decentralized Exchanges? Evidence from the Uniswap Protocol," Papers 2410.19107, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2410.19107
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