AMMs have really carved out their niche in the DeFi space due to how simple and easy they are to use. Decentralizing market making this way is intrinsic to the vision of crypto.
You could think of an automated market maker as a robot that’s always willing to quote you a price between two assets. Not only can you trade trustlessly using an AMM, but you can also become the house by providing liquidity to a liquidity pool. This allows essentially anyone to become a market maker on an exchange and earn fees for providing liquidity.
Nevertheless，how to increase slippage on uniswap and what is slippage in cryptocurrency？ Please read on.
Introduction
Decentralized Finance (DeFi)has seen an explosion of interest on Ethereum and other smart contract platforms like BNB Smart Chain. Yield farming has become a popular way of token distribution, tokenized BTCis growing on Ethereum, and flash loanvolumes are booming. Meanwhile, automated market maker protocols like Uniswap regularly see competitive volumes, high liquidity, and an increasing number of users.
What is an automated market maker (AMM)?
An automated market maker (AMM) is a type of decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol that relies on a mathematical formula to price assets. Instead of using an order book like a traditional exchange, assets are priced according to a pricing algorithm.
This formula can vary with each protocol. Other AMMs will use other formulas for the specific use cases they target. The similarity between all of them, however, is that they determine the prices algorithmically. Traditional market making usually works with firms with vast resources and complex strategies. Automated market makers decentralize this process and let essentially anyone create a market on a blockchain.
How does an automated market maker (AMM) work?
An AMM works similarly to an order book exchange in that there are trading pairs – for example, ETH/DAI. However, you don’t need to have a counterparty (another trader) on the other side to make a trade. Instead, you interact with a smart contract that “makes” the market for you.
In contrast, you could think of AMMs as peer-to-contract (P2C). There’s no need for counterparties in the traditional sense, as trades happen between users and contracts. Since there’s no order book, there are also no order types on an AMM. What price you get for an asset you want to buy or sell is determined by a formula instead. Although it’s worth noting that some future AMM designs may counteract this limitation.
What is a liquidity pool?
Liquidity providers (LPs) add funds to liquidity pools. You could think of a liquidity pool as a big pile of funds that traders can trade against. In return for providing liquidity to the protocol, LPs earn fees from the trades that happen in their pool. In the case of Uniswap, LPs deposit an equivalent value of two tokens – for example, 50% ETH and 50% DAI to the ETH/DAI pool.
Why is attracting liquidity important? Due to the way AMMs work, the more liquidity there is in the pool, the less slippage large orders may incur. That, in turn, may attract more volume to the platform, and so on.
The slippage issues will vary with different AMM designs, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind. Remember, pricing is determined by an algorithm. In a simplified way, it’s determined by how much the ratio between the tokens in the liquidity pool changes after a trade. If the ratio changes by a wide margin, there’s going to be a large amount of slippage.
To take this a bit further, let’s say you wanted to buy all the ETH in the ETH/DAI pool on Uniswap. Well, you couldn’t! You’d have to pay an exponentially higher and higher premium for each additional ether, but still never could buy all of it from the pool.
What is impermanent loss?
Impermanent loss happens when the price ratio of deposited tokens changes after you deposited them in the pool. The larger the change is, the bigger the impermanent loss. This is why AMMs work best with token pairs that have a similar value, such as stablecoins or wrapped tokens. If the price ratio between the pair remains in a relatively small range, impermanent loss is also negligible.
On the other hand, if the ratio changes a lot, liquidity providers may be better off simply holding the tokens instead of adding funds to a pool. Even so, Uniswap pools like ETH/DAI that are quite exposed to impermanent loss have been profitable thanks to the trading fees they accrue.
Closing thoughts
Automated market makers are a staple of the DeFi space. They enable essentially anyone to create markets seamlessly and efficiently. While they do have their limitations compared to order book exchanges, the overall innovation they bring to crypto is invaluable. AMMs are still in their infancy. Hope this article can help you get a further understanding about how to increase slippage on uniswap and what is slippage in cryptocurrency.
