Record High Uni Sits On Exchanges: Sell Pressure Ahead, Or Are Whales Right?

What Happened

Uniswap (UNI) holdings on centralized exchanges have climbed to a record high of 113.9 million tokens, CryptoQuant data shows. Yet, several large wallets are pulling UNI off exchanges and adding to their positions.

Exchanges Fill Up as Big Wallets Pull Tokens Out

The 113.9 million figure is the highest in CryptoQuant data, which starts in late 2020. Balances have risen in stages since early 2024, with a jump from about 100 million in August.

Market Context

The token has swung sharply this week. UNI rose 11.9% on Wednesday on plans for CME Group futures, then fell with the wider market on Thursday. Overall, it remains up over 113% in the past month.

“Rising exchange reserves alongside surging active addresses into multi-month price highs create conditions that historically preceded elevated sell-side liquidity and consolidation more often than an immediate supply deficit,” the post read.

Whale flows remain mixed, while protocol data shows growth in tokenized stock trading. Uniswap said it handles 80% of Robinhood Stock Token volume, which has topped $10 billion.

On Base, tokenized equities have passed $300 million in Uniswap volume. On Circle’s Arc blockchain, Uniswap has handled over $300 million in swaps, about 84% of the chain’s decentralized exchange volume.

The data places Uniswap at the center of trading on these blockchains. Some of that volume can reach UNI through the protocol’s fee switch, which funds token buybacks and burns.

Why It Matters

Binance accounts for much of the build-up. It held over 73 million UNI as of September 23. Analyst CryptoOnchain said the exchange took in 2.6 million UNI on September 18 and 1.89 million on September 22.

Meanwhile, wallets tracked by Lookonchain are moving the opposite way. Earlier this week, 3 newly created addresses gathered 782,130 UNI, worth $6.97 million.

Details

Two of them, 0x9681 and 0xf415, withdrew a combined 652,129 UNI from Binance, Gate, Bybit, and OKX. The third, 0xbD9C, received 130,000 UNI from Galaxy Digital. Another address 0xEFC4 bought 269,477 UNI worth $2.84 million.

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However, some are cashing out. Wallet 0xA799 sold 788,000 UNI at $8.85, less than a week after buying at $6.26. That sale netted about $2.04 million and nearly matches the 3 new wallets’ combined haul.

Stock Tokens Keep Uniswap’s Pools Busy

Token Terminal data shows Uniswap holds over 99% of decentralized finance (DeFi) deposits for Robinhood stock tokens on Robinhood Chain.

However, the burns remain small compared with recent exchange inflows. Uniswap burned 184,000 UNI on September 4, its second-highest daily total, with 150,000 of that coming from the Robinhood Chain.

Binance took in about 14 times that amount on September 18 alone. For now, the record reserve puts more UNI within sellers’ reach than the burns remove.

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The post Record High UNI Sits on Exchanges: Sell Pressure Ahead, or Are Whales Right? appeared first on BeInCrypto.