Morning Minute: Uniswap Enters the Launchpad Wars on Robinhood Chain

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors are slightly green with ETH leading; BTC at $64.5k
• BTC ETFs see $626M in net inflows to start the week
• Uniswap enters launchpad wars with zero-fee Pools dot Trade
• Fomo App hits another new ATH in daily revenue as onchain heats up more
• Cashcat surges to $130M and Stonkbroker to $50M as RH Chain levels up

🦄 Uniswap Enters the Launchpad Wars With Pools.trade

Uniswap launched Pools.trade yesterday, its own token-launch platform built on Robinhood Chain and powered by its v4 protocol.

For those unfamiliar, token launchpads are the platforms that let anyone spin up and launch a new token (or memecoin) in minutes. It’s the machinery behind the memecoin boom that Pump Fun built into a billion-dollar business on Solana and that drove Robinhood Chain’s frenzy this summer. Now the biggest name in decentralized trading is stepping directly into the ring.

The rollout was fairly chaotic. Founder Hayden Adams said traders discovered earlier versions of the smart contracts before the interface even went live and pushed more than $150 million in volume through them, forcing the team to support both the test and final versions of the contracts at the same time and pushing back the official launch. Adams noted Uniswap has effectively served as a launchpad and launchpad infrastructure for over eight years, since new tokens have always launched into Uniswap pools, so this is not a new game for them.

As for Pools.trade’s differentiators:

• It charges no launchpad fee
• Every launch comes with permanently locked liquidity, and
• The 0.25% LP fee autocompounds back into that locked pool rather than going to the Uniswap team, split 20% to the token creator and 80% into the liquidity mechanism.

And it ships with heavy distribution, with day-one support across the Uniswap web app, wallet, and trading API, plus third-party venues including Bitget, Fomo, GMGN, and OKX Wallet.

There are two ways to launch: an instant launch that works like other launchpads, and a “crowd launch” designed to be fairer and more resistant to bundling, the sniping tactic where insiders grab large allocations at the open.

This was a power move from Uniswap. Uniswap is already the default exchange on Robinhood Chain, so Pools.trade vertically integrates the create-and-trade pipeline on the same chain where launchpads like Pons have been fighting for share. And the decision to have 0 fee is very rare – a move very few teams are in the position to make (Uniswap can earn fees from other mechanisms while other launchpad teams can’t).

Robinhood Chain has already seen the impact, with DEX volumes rebounding 50% from local lows and daily transactions up 50% as well. Pools is already capturing 50% market share by launchpad volume and 40% of new tokens launched – expect those figures to grind higher.

The platform is still in beta, and whether it attracts quality projects or just more churn is unproven. But when the largest liquidity venue in DeFi makes a move like this, we pay attention.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are mostly green with ETH leading; BTC +0.8% at $64.5k; ETH +2% at $1,903; SOL -1% at $73.30; HYPE -3% at $55.20
• Top alt movers include ZRO (+6%), LIT (+5%) and CRV (+3%)
• Oil -1% at $75.80; Gold +3% at $4,320
• Stock futures are mixed after a strong start to the week; DOW +0.3%, Nasdaq -0.5%
• Circle tapped BlackRock, Visa, and Mastercard as Arc validators, naming an 11-institution founding cohort drawn almost entirely from traditional finance, including DTCC, ICE, Standard Chartered, and SBI, to secure its blockchain when the public mainnet opens September 16
• Circle also renewed its Coinbase USDC partnership on existing terms and ruled out quarterly dividends, saying it would rather reinvest capital in growth.
• Mysten Labs co-founder and CTO Sam Blackshear is leaving to join Anthropic to work on defensive security research, an exit from the company behind the Sui blockchain by the creator of its Move-based programming language
• Visa expanded stablecoin payouts through a Zerohash partnership, letting businesses send funds directly to stablecoin wallets and deepening the card network’s push into on-chain payment rails
• A volunteer audit “Bitcoin Red Team” filed 4,962 AI-generated security findings across 390 Bitcoin projects in about 30 hours, including 85 critical and 635 high-severity issues, with privacy and coinjoin tools returning the highest share of serious bugs

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $244M in net inflows on Wednesday; the ETH ETFs saw $61M in inflows
• Strategy’s STRC preferred stock has rebounded 30% as the company plows capital into it and builds its cash reserve to $4 billion

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mostly red; DOGE -1%, SHIB -3%, PEPE -2%, PENGU +1%, TRUMP -1%, BONK even
• Robinhood chain was very green led by Cashcat (+34% to $130M), Stonkbroker (+35%) and Pipedog (+10%); FRONG retraces to $8M after peaking at $17M
• Solana leaders included Kio (+600%), Stonk (+165%) and Manlet(+90x); ANSEM even at $175M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mixed; Punks even at 31.7 ETH, BAYC -4% at 8 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 3.85 ETH; Stonkbrokers +28% to 7.6 ETH
• Cash Cats (+100%) and pyo (+28%) led top movers
• A Hoodie CryptoPunk sold for $515,000, the largest sale of the month; and an XCOPY 1/1 sold for 280 ETH