Uniswap Labs has launched the Unichain mainnet after initially announcing the network in October last year.

The pink chain has arrived You can swap, bridge, and provide liquidity on @Unichain directly from the Uniswap web app and in the latest version

Uniswap Labs has finally launched the mainnet for their layer 2 blockchain platform, called Unichain, after initially announcing the network back in October last year. According to Uniswap Labs, there are already more than 80 applications and infrastructure providers lined up to build on the Unichain platform.

The pink chain has arrived You can swap, bridge, and provide liquidity on @Unichain directly from the Uniswap web app and in the latest version of the wallet Just look for the ✨ pic.twitter.com/3G4F3kQSr4

Unichain is a layer 2 blockchain platform that is built on top of Ethereum and optimized for DeFi (decentralized finance) use cases. The platform has a block time of just one second, but developers plan to reduce it to 250 milliseconds with future updates to increase performance.

The main benefit of Unichain for regular users will be significantly lower fees, as they can expect to pay around 95% less in fees compared to using the Ethereum mainnet. Transactions will also be substantially faster, providing a more streamlined decentralized trading experience.

Unichain is part of the Superchain, which is a network of layer 2 blockchains built using Optimism's OP Stack framework.

Notably, Circle is already providing native support for their USD Coin stablecoin on Unichain, which should simplify the process of onboarding users to the platform.

An important aspect of Unichain is that it introduces additional utility for the UNI token beyond just participation in the Uniswap governance process, which was the token's only use case until now.

Users who want to operate a validator on the Unichain Validation Network (UVN) have to stake UNI tokens on the Ethereum mainnet. Validators earn rewards in the form of additional UNI tokens for helping secure the network.

The Unichain launch has provided a long-awaited boost to the utility of UNI, will the price follow?

Uniswap's UNI token has seen a modest price increase in the last 24 hours, increasing by 3.1% against the US dollar. However, we could see much more momentum in the UNI market if Unichain starts gaining significant traction.

The UNI price prediction on CoinCodex is forecasting bullish price action for UNI in the short to medium term, as it expects the UNI to rally up to the $16 price level by May. This would represent a 66.5% increase compared to the current price of UNI.

With a market capitalization of $5.7 billion, UNI currently holds the 25th spot in the crypto rankings.