
Uniswap is the largest decentralised exchange by volume and the pioneer of the Automated Market Maker (AMM) model. Uniswap V3 introduced concentrated liquidity, allowing LPs to allocate capital within custom price ranges for dramatically improved capital efficiency. Uniswap V4 (upcoming) introduces hooks — plugins that allow developers to customise pool behaviour.
Curve Finance specialises in low-slippage swaps between similarly priced assets — stablecoins (USDT/USDC/DAI), wrapped tokens (WBTC/renBTC), and liquid staking derivatives (stETH/ETH). Its StableSwap invariant formula is specifically designed for pegged assets, offering much tighter spreads than constant-product AMMs. The CRV wars and vote-escrow tokenomics (veCRV) created an influential governance and bribery meta-game across DeFi.
Aerodrome is the leading DEX on Base (Coinbase's L2), forked from Velodrome on Optimism. It uses the ve(3,3) model where voters direct emissions to liquidity pools, creating flywheel incentives for deep liquidity. Aerodrome has captured the majority of Base's DEX volume and TVL since launch.
Raydium is Solana's leading AMM and liquidity provider, designed to leverage Solana's high-speed, low-cost infrastructure. It integrates with OpenBook's central limit order book (CLOB) for hybrid AMM+order book liquidity. Raydium's AcceleRaytor serves as a launchpad for new Solana projects.
Balancer is a flexible AMM that supports multi-asset pools with customisable weightings (not just 50/50). This allows index-like funds, portfolio rebalancing, and innovative pool designs. Balancer V2 introduced a single vault architecture for capital efficiency. The protocol powers many of DeFi's most complex liquidity strategies.