Uniswap V4 claimed the second-largest 24-hour trading volume among decentralized exchanges on August 4, surpassing its predecessor Uniswap V3 with $691.4 million in volume versus V3's $680.7 million, according to data tracked by DefiLlama. V4 held the third position the previous day.
The shift marks the first time the newer version has outpaced V3 in daily volume, a reversal that occurred after Uniswap's latest protocol iteration since its May 2024 launch. The $10.7 million gap between the two versions is narrow enough that daily volume leadership between them could swing again based on market conditions.
Uniswap V4 introduced hooks, a smart contract mechanism that allows developers to customize liquidity provision rules and add new functionality to individual pools without requiring protocol-level changes. The feature was designed to lower barriers for specialized trading strategies and niche asset pairs. V3, which launched in May 2021, remains one of the most widely used DEX versions on Ethereum and other chains, retaining deep liquidity in major trading pairs.
Trading volume leadership among DEX versions can fluctuate daily based on market conditions, token launches, and arbitrage opportunities. V4's climb to second place in a single day does not yet establish a sustained trend, but the proximity to V3 in volume shows the two are operating in overlapping market conditions rather than serving entirely separate user bases.
The metric to watch is whether V4 maintains top-two volume rankings over the next 30 days, which would indicate user behavior has genuinely shifted rather than moved based on transient liquidity events.
