Uniswap

Uniswap is the automated market maker most other DEXs were built in reaction to. Liquidity providers deposit pairs of tokens into pools and traders swap against those pools at a price set by a formula rather than by an order book.

Three versions run on Base and DefiLlama tracks each separately, which is why the rankings list Uniswap more than once. V2 uses the original constant-product pools, V3 lets providers concentrate liquidity in a price range so the same capital does more work, and V4 moves pool logic into hooks that developers can customise. Between them they hold the largest DEX position on Base after Aerodrome, and Uniswap is deployed on more than forty chains.