Bankless: The Silent Rise of Unichain

Author: David C Source: Bankless Translation: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance

Unichain is quietly rising, becoming one of the most noteworthy Ethereum layer twos (L2), yet it has hardly attracted widespread attention from the outside world.

While projects like Base dominate the discussions around Superchain, Unichain has been steadily expanding in the background since its mainnet launch in early February. With its deep integration with Uniswap, it has provided a superior DeFi experience, particularly in the area of yield generation.

Let's take a look at its growth momentum:

Network Growth

Unichain's current total locked value (TVL) in DeFi and stablecoins is approximately $1.3 billion, growing by 41% over the past month, ranking fourth among all Ethereum Rollups.

According to data from L2Beat, it ranks third in total user transaction volume among all L2s, with a month-on-month growth of 42% in June, handling 2.2% of the total weekly trading volume of all-chain DEXs, and overall ranking fifth among all blockchains.

Of the 1.3 billion USD in TVL, approximately 860 million USD comes from DeFi, while the remaining approximately 440 million USD comes from stablecoins, with these funds highly concentrated in a few lending protocols and their third-party curation vaults.

• Uniswap | TVL: $641 million — Unsurprisingly, Uniswap holds the largest share of on-chain TVL, with the vast majority of funds concentrated in the v4 version.
• Euler | TVL: 330 million USD — Next is Euler, a permissionless lending protocol featuring anti-MEV liquidation, dynamic interest rates, and multi-collateral stable pools. Euler's instance on Unichain has grown to become the fifth largest lending protocol in the entire Superchain.
• Morpho | TVL: 67 million USD — Morpho is a non-custodial lending protocol that offers customized lending markets and optimized yield vaults orchestrated by third-party DeFi companies such as Gauntlet and RE7.

These protocols account for the vast majority of Unichain's TVL, clearly demonstrating that this chain is primarily a "yield generation" home rather than a breeding ground for speculation. Interestingly, there is no single MEME coin on the chain with a market cap exceeding $1 million, and most of the liquidity is concentrated in blue-chip assets such as $ETH (or its wrapped versions), $wBTC, and stablecoins.

The Next Step for Unichain

Unichain is continuously building its core infrastructure with the aim of becoming the most suitable chain for DeFi. Several key mechanisms are already in place in its architecture to drive this goal:

• Flashblocks — Developed in collaboration with Flashbots, it splits each block into four sub-blocks, achieving a 1-second block time. This compression mechanism enhances execution speed, arbitrage efficiency, and reduces MEV-related losses, resulting in higher capital efficiency and user experience.
• Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) — The sequencer of Unichain uses TEE technology to sort transactions in a private and tamper-proof environment, thereby supporting fairer MEV outcomes and reducing the risk of predatory behavior.

The next major upgrade of Unichain will be the launch of its Validator Network (UVN), aimed at reducing reliance on a single sequencer and overall enhancing the decentralization level of the chain.

The current sorter can delay, reorder, or even submit invalid transactions, undermining user trust and slowing down the finality of cross-chain transactions. UVN introduces a set of independent validators to verify transactions before the block is finally confirmed.

It is worth noting that validators must stake $UNI to participate in the network. After launch, 65% of Unichain's net on-chain income will be distributed to these validators and $UNI stakers. Currently, Unichain is the second highest L2 in net income on Superchain.

The testnet for UVN is expected to go live in the coming months, followed by the mainnet deployment. Over time, UVN may also introduce more protection mechanisms—such as monitoring the memory pool to ensure fair transaction packaging, or requiring validator consensus before accepting blocks.

Summary

Although Unichain is a "general-purpose" L2, its architecture is tailored for DeFi, designed around execution speed, MEV-friendly fairness, and liquidity alignment.

From Flashblocks and TEEs to the upcoming verification network, each component supports deeper funding efficiency and composability. Its DeFi-first positioning—supported by lending protocols like Euler and Morpho—has quietly propelled it to the forefront of the L2 revenue leaderboard, accompanied by strong TVL growth and active users.

Furthermore, in conjunction with Unichain, Uniswap, and Uniswap Wallet, it is evident that Uniswap Labs is building a vertically integrated DeFi stack—controlling the application, wallet, and execution layers, with the intention of becoming the preferred source of liquidity in the cryptocurrency market.

Although Unichain still has a long way to go, it has already shown a compelling long-term potential: the cross-chain interoperability issue may soon become a thing of the past, and the next phase of DeFi will come from an environment defined by execution speed, income alignment, and deep liquidity control.