Why Uniswap Upgrades Matter: Build Better DeFi Apps with The Graph’s v2, v3, and v4 Support
The Challenge of Protocol Evolution in DeFi
DeFi applications face a fundamental challenge: accessing optimal liquidity across rapidly evolving protocol architectures. has evolved from v2's simple constant product formula to v4's advanced hook architecture, with each version representing a significant shift in how liquidity is managed.
Portfolio managers, arbitrage bots, trading dashboards, and routing engines can leverage three different protocol architectures to remain competitive. Each Uniswap version has distinct data requirements. V2's separate contracts for each token pair, v3's concentrated liquidity ranges, and v4's singleton architecture with customizable hooks all require different approaches for indexing, processing, and accessing data.
Applications can fully leverage The Graph’s Uniswap integrations to adapt to the fast-evolving market.
A Quick Recap: Three Distinct Uniswap Architectures
Developers can leverage the unique performance traits and design choices of each Uniswap version:
- Uniswap v2: Independent pools per token pair with uniform liquidity and fixed fees.
- Uniswap v3: LPs provide liquidity within custom price ranges, making tracking and fee tier indexing more complex.
- Uniswap v4: All pools in one single contract. Hooks modify swap logic, introduce dynamic fees, on-chain orders, oracle pricing, and custom AMMs.
Why Uniswap v4 Support Matters to Developers
A portfolio management application illustrates the compounded benefits of supporting all Uniswap versions.
Multi-Version Benefits:
- v2 foundation: Stable liquidity access across established token pairs
- v3 enhancement: Higher yields through concentrated liquidity strategies
- v4 innovation: New revenue streams via dynamic rebalancing with custom fee structures
v4-Specific Portfolio Advantages: Portfolio management applications can leverage v4's new architecture for more efficient multi-token rebalancing. V4 consolidates all pools into a single smart contract and uses flash accounting to track net balances internally. This makes complex portfolio operations more streamlined.
Purpose-Built Solutions for Multi-Version Access
The Graph's three-products address the fundamental challenge of supporting multiple protocol generations simultaneously. While other data providers force developers to choose between pre-defined real-time access and historical depth, The Graph enables developers to select the optimal tool for their specific protocol requirements.
The Graph ensures applications evolve with protocol improvements while capitalizing on performance enhancements. Developers can access v2's established liquidity, v3's capital efficiency, and v4's customizable logic.
Developer Impact:
- Build applications optimized for specific protocol versions
- Migrate between protocols without redefining data pipelines
- Access protocol-specific features through purpose-built tools
- Scale applications as underlying protocols evolve
Subgraphs: Multi-Contract Indexing
index smart contract events throughout Uniswap's distributed architecture. They manage v2's individual pool contracts, v3's position-specific data via, and v4's custom AMMs:
- Historical trading data access across all pool contracts
- Position range queries and liquidity distribution tracking
- Fee performance analysis across different tiers
- Unified GraphQL interface for complex routing strategies
Benefits: Subgraphs provide detailed tracking for all protocol activities, including token pairs and their associated liquidity. They generate dependable data patterns for extracting deep protocol insights or designing comprehensive dashboards.
Substreams: Architecture Optimization
is optimized to handle any Uniswap architecture. It’s especially fast with v4’s singleton architecture. The singleton design combines all pools into a single contract, accelerating data production and indexing. Substreams simplifies access to:
- Historical data without expensive query operations or long wait times
- Real-time AMM activity regardless of any custom logic
- Real-time storage changes and balance changes
- Dynamic storage to keep track of pool creations or token IDs
Benefits: Substreams provide dynamic transaction access, implicitly supporting all state changes. It includes gas fees and call traces, all while remaining as close to head as possible for complex routing and solving strategies.
Token API: Fast Pool & Balance Insights
delivers instant access to historical Uniswap pool and wallet data without deploying custom infrastructure:
- Fetch token balances by pool over different windows
- Query OHLCV pricing data per token or pool
- Retrieve metadata for any Uniswap pool or token
- Discover pools by token pair and filter by chain
Benefits: Ideal for dashboards, wallets, and portfolio trackers, the Token API provides reliable insights into Uniswap activity with simple REST calls. It’s optimized for fast access to pool-level pricing and wallet-level balances, with no custom indexing required.
Strategic Advantage Through Technical Evolution
As Uniswap advances from simple constant product formulas to sophisticated hook systems, The Graph's product suite provides the data infrastructure needed to unlock the potential of each version. Multi-version integration delivers measurable competitive advantages through comprehensive liquidity access, state access, enhanced developer experience, and future-proof architecture that adapts to protocol evolution.
The Graph's infrastructure enables developers to build applications that leverage the unique strengths of each Uniswap version while positioning them for continued success as the DeFi landscape evolves.
About The Graph
is the leading indexing and query protocol powering the decentralized internet. Since launching in 2018, it has empowered tens of thousands of developers to effortlessly build and leverage across countless blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Polygon, Celo, Soneium, and Avalanche. With powerful tools like Substreams and Token API, The Graph delivers high-performance, real-time access to onchain data. From low-latency indexing to rapid token data, it serves as the premier solution for building composable, data drive dapps.
Discover more about how The Graph is shaping the future of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) and stay connected with the community. Follow The Graph on , , , , , and . Join the community on The Graph’s , join technical discussions on The Graph’s .
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