V4 Hooks Created 2500 Custom Pools and 150 Strategies, Uniswap Reclaimed 36% DEX Market Share, and the Protocol Now Generates $26M Annual Revenue - The Technical Moat Is Real

crypto_chris
Fri, 06 Feb 2026 20:00:30 +0000

Competitive Landscape: V4 Hooks vs. the Field

Good discussion so far. Let me bring the competitive analysis angle, because 36% market share and 26M in annualized revenue sound strong until you look at what the competition is doing.

Aerodrome on Base is the most immediate threat. It captured roughly 60% of Base DEX volume by combining a ve(3,3) tokenomics model with concentrated liquidity – essentially offering LPs better incentive alignment than Uniswap’s fee-only model. Aerodrome does not have hooks, but it does not need them for its core value proposition: bribes and vote-directed emissions create a flywheel that attracts liquidity without requiring developers to write custom contracts. For the average LP who just wants yield, Aerodrome’s model is simpler and often more profitable on Base. V4 hooks are powerful, but power and simplicity are different selling points.

Raydium on Solana operates in a different paradigm entirely. Solana’s sub-second finality and negligible gas fees mean that many of the problems V4 hooks solve – gas optimization via flash accounting, on-chain limit orders, TWAP execution – are less painful to solve at the application layer. Raydium’s CLMM pools process billions in weekly volume without needing a hook abstraction because the execution environment is cheap enough to handle complexity externally. The 99% gas savings from flash accounting matter a lot less when your base gas cost is already fractions of a cent.

Ambient (formerly CrocSwap) is perhaps the most architecturally similar competitor. It also uses a singleton contract design with extensible pool logic, and it has been quietly gaining traction with institutional desks that appreciate its capital efficiency. Ambient’s approach is more opinionated – fewer customization points but tighter integration – which some traders prefer over the open-ended hook model.

Is 36% Market Share Sustainable?

Here is my honest assessment. The 36% figure is an improvement from the 33% trough, but Uniswap’s historical peak was above 65% during the V3 era. The DEX market has structurally fragmented across chains and specialized venues. On Ethereum mainnet, Uniswap remains dominant. On Base, Aerodrome leads. On Solana, Raydium and Orca split the market. On Arbitrum, Uniswap competes with Camelot and GMX for different trade types.

V4 hooks strengthen Uniswap’s position on EVM chains specifically. The technical moat Brian described is real but chain-specific. It does not protect against Solana-native competitors or L2-specific protocols with superior tokenomics.

Revenue Trajectory

The 26M annualized revenue is a milestone, but context matters. That represents roughly 2.6bp on estimated volume – a thin margin that depends on sustained volume growth. If DEX volumes contract in a bear market, that revenue drops proportionally. Compare this to centralized exchanges generating billions in revenue. The fee switch is a start, not a destination.

My trading desk perspective: V4 hooks have meaningfully improved execution quality on Uniswap. The MEV protection hooks alone have saved us an estimated 8-12bp per trade on large orders compared to V3 routing. That is real alpha. But whether it translates to durable market share depends on execution across multiple chains, not just technical superiority on mainnet.