Uniswap acquires NFT marketplace aggregator Genie to further ‘universal ownership’ goals

Decentralized exchange Uniswap to add additional NFT functionality to its platform following the acquisition.

Decentralized exchange Uniswap announced the acquisition of the NFT marketplace aggregator Genie on June 21st. Uniswap said this move is part of its mission to unlock universal ownership and exchange on its platform.

Uniswap is now integrating NFTs into its product line beginning with the Uniswap web app and later integrations are said to include developer APIs and widgets. This isn’t the first time Uniswap has worked with NFTs. In the spring of 2019 it launched Unisocks which offered NFT liquidity pools backed by real-world assets.

Uniswap said in the announcement, “We’re excited to bring what we’ve learned building DeFi products to NFTs.” In August Uniswap said it planned to airdrop USDC to historical Genie users in an effort to share the value of this acquisition and integration.

Uniswap launched the first instance of NFT liquidity pools, called Unisocks, in the spring of 2019. They also view NFTs as “an important gateway to web3” rather than “a separate ecosystem from ERC20s.”

Genie is known as the first NFT marketplace aggregator providing a means to discover, buy, and sell NFTs across various marketplaces. The company allows users to “batch buy NFTs across all major marketplaces in a single transaction and save up to 40% on gas fees.”

Some metaverse-related endeavors and companies continue to make progress despite recent market instability. GameFi and game-related NFTs for instance have shown signs of forward movement and growth recently. New, experimental NFT approaches have still been released showing positive sentiment for NFT, GameFi, and metaverse aspects of the crypto and Web3 industries.