Arc goes live tomorrow, and one detail is worth watching:
Uniswap Labs' Pools.trade is joining the Arc ecosystem too.
A lot of people probably think: isn't that just another launchpad?
But if you put it inside Uniswap's overall strategy, I think what it means goes far beyond a token-launch platform.
Because Uniswap is trying to move from:
trading assets
to:
creating assets.
01｜What exactly is Pools.trade?
Hearing about Pools.trade for the first time, many people assume it is a new project. It isn't.
Pools.trade is the launchpad built by Uniswap Labs.
It first deployed on Robinhood Chain, with a very clear goal:
helping users create tokens quickly, and getting those tokens into Uniswap's liquidity system afterwards. (AirdropAlert)
The old Uniswap flow looked like this:
A team issues a token.
↓
It looks for liquidity.
↓
It lists and trades on Uniswap.
Uniswap was the last step.
Pools.trade changes that flow:
Create the token.
↓
Through Pools.trade.
↓
Straight into a Uniswap liquidity pool.
In other words:
Uniswap has started moving towards the front end of an asset's life cycle.
02｜Why is Uniswap building a launchpad?
The answer is simple:
whoever controls where assets are issued controls future traffic.
PONS has already proven one thing: the biggest value of the meme market is not necessarily trading itself.
It is the issuance front door.
Why did Pump.fun take off?
Because it controlled:
who could issue a meme.
who saw a meme first.
who could trade it earliest.
A launchpad is itself a traffic entry point.
After PONS exploded on Robinhood Chain, it also proved the potential of this model.
Lots of tokens created.
Lots of trading.
Lots of fees.
Which compounds into a flywheel of:
issuance → trading → revenue → ecosystem growth.
And what Uniswap saw was:
why should I only show up to trade after a token graduates?
why not take part from the very first step?
So Pools.trade appeared.
03｜Are Pools.trade and PONS competitors?
In some sense, yes.
Because both are fighting for the same thing:
the meme issuance front door.
PONS's advantages:
- native to Robinhood Chain
- first-mover advantage
- a community that already formed
- it validated the meme launchpad model
Pools.trade's advantages:
- the Uniswap brand
- an enormous liquidity network
- Uniswap V4 infrastructure
- distribution through wallet, app and API
Put simply:
PONS looks like a startup that suddenly went viral.
Pools.trade looks like a big player entering the market with users and infrastructure behind it.
But the two are not outright enemies either.
Because PONS's biggest success also depends on Uniswap.
In PONS V2's design, tokens that graduate move into Uniswap V4 liquidity pools.
So PONS creates the assets.
Uniswap hosts the liquidity.
That is also why, after PONS took off, Uniswap Labs chose to buy PONS and said it wanted long-term alignment. (The Defiant)
04｜How has Pools.trade performed on Robinhood Chain?
This is the part most worth observing.
After launching on Robinhood Chain in August, Pools.trade quickly became PONS's biggest competitor. (KuCoin)
Early on it even pulled in a large share of volume.
The reason is simple: the market is very sensitive to the "where tokens are born" entry point.
Whichever platform attracts more creators:
is the one that gets more trading.
But so far PONS still dominates the launchpad market on Robinhood, with close to 80% of it.
That shows a launchpad is not only about technology — it is also community, culture and user habit.
05｜Pools.trade coming to Arc may matter even more
Robinhood Chain is mostly memes, retail users and token trading.
Arc is completely different, with Circle behind it.
What Arc wants to build is USDC financial infrastructure, payments, RWA and institutional assets.
So why is Uniswap bringing Pools.trade to Arc?
Because in the future RWA will need an issuance front door too.
What gets issued may not be a meme.
It may be:
a fund token.
a bond token.
a yield token.
an equity token.
Those assets need the same things:
creation, trading, liquidity.
So Pools.trade may not be just a meme launchpad.
It looks more like an on-chain asset issuance front door.
06｜Will Pools.trade have its own token?
Pools.trade has not publicly issued a standalone token.
But whether it ever will is a question many people are asking.
Because almost every project has its own token.
Uniswap has UNI,
PancakeSwap has CAKE.
Raydium has RAY.
Launchpad-style protocols usually design some form of value capture.
So will Pools.trade issue its own token later?
Or will it bind directly to UNI and change UNI's economic model.
I think the second option has more imagination to it. Why?
Because Pools.trade is not an independent project — it belongs to the Uniswap ecosystem.
If in the future:
Pools.trade generates a lot of trading.
↓
Uniswap's Protocol Fee grows.
↓
UNI burns increase.
Then value capture has already happened.
There may be no need to issue another token at all.
07｜What if Pools goes multi-chain across EVM?
This is the speculation I find most interesting.
Right now:
PONS: Robinhood Chain.
Pools: Robinhood Chain.
Arc:
about to be added.
If Uniswap later pushes Pools to more EVM chains:
Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, BNB Chain.
Then in theory it could challenge every meme launchpad that exists today.
Including Four.meme on BSC.
Because Four.meme's biggest advantage is being native to BNB Chain.
If Uniswap + Pools.trade ever arrive on BSC,
with Uniswap's liquidity + a huge brand + multi-chain distribution,
the BSC meme launchpad landscape could shift.
But there is a catch here:
Four.meme already has a large Chinese-speaking community and BSC user base.
Competition between launchpads is not only about technology.
It is about users, culture and community.
So it would be too simple to say that in the short term "Pools replaces Four.meme."
But over the long run, if Uniswap truly turns a launchpad into multi-chain infrastructure,
any single-chain launchpad will come under pressure.
Finally
I used to think Uniswap's biggest story was:
a decentralised exchange.
But lately this positioning feels too small.
Uniswap is trying to cover:
asset issuance.
liquidity.
trading.
financial applications.
From Robinhood Chain to Arc.
From PONS to Pools.trade.
Step by step it is becoming:
the infrastructure through which on-chain assets reach the market.
The competition ahead may not be about which meme goes up the most.
It is about who controls the first step of an asset's life.
Because whoever controls issuance
controls the next wave of traffic.