Uniswap Founder Hayden Adams Sees AMMs Reshaping Tokenized Markets
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams has argued that the growth of tokenized real-world assets could give automated market makers (AMMs) a larger role in global financial markets. In a post published Wednesday, August 26, 2026, Adams said putting assets such as stocks and other securities on shared blockchain infrastructure could allow them to trade through correlated pairs rather than relying primarily on dollar-based markets.
In the post, the founder also argued that this model could reduce some of the inventory and hedging costs faced by traditional market makers and make passive liquidity more competitive. The comments come as tokenized equities are beginning to trade on blockchain networks, including Robinhood Chain, where Uniswap operates as the primary public AMM. The argument remains a forward-looking view of how tokenized markets could develop, rather than evidence that AMMs have displaced established market-making firms.
Adams Case For Correlated Onchain Markets
Adams’ argument starts with a distinction between tokenization as an infrastructure upgrade and tokenization as a change to market structure. He argued that putting financial assets on a shared blockchain could allow them to trade directly against other assets instead of routing every transaction through dollars.
One example is a potential NVDA/SPY market. An investor who already wants exposure to both NVIDIA and the S&P 500 could provide liquidity between the two assets without taking on the same type of dollar-denominated exposure as an NVDA/USD pool. Adams argues that when assets move in similar ways, liquidity providers face less inventory risk, potentially making passive liquidity more competitive with professional market makers.
The idea is already familiar in crypto. ETH-based assets often trade against ETH, while stablecoins commonly trade against other stablecoins. Adams argues that this pattern could extend to tokenized stocks, bonds and other assets as more of them move onchain.
A smaller number of highly liquid “bridge pairs” could then connect those markets to dollars. He points to SPY/USD and ETH/USDC as examples. Under that model, a trade could move from NVDA to SPY and then to USD, rather than requiring a deep NVDA/USD market.
The economics are central to the argument. Traditional market makers generally manage inventory risk and may hedge their positions to reduce unwanted exposure. Adams contends that an investor who already wants to hold the underlying assets has less reason to pay these hedging costs. He therefore sees permissionless AMMs as a way to bring more sources of capital into market making.
The concept also has support from existing DeFi experience. Discussions among liquidity providers on Reddit have long pointed to correlated pairs such as WBTC/WETH as having lower impermanent-loss exposure than more divergent pairs, although profitability still depends on fees, price movements and active management.
Tokenized Stocks Provide An Early Test
The clearest example Adams cites is on Robinhood Chain, where Uniswap supports tokenized stocks and other assets. Uniswap said when the network launched that its v2, v3, v4 and UniswapX products were available from day one, with stock tokens designed to trade around the clock. Adams said 10 tokenized stocks paired directly with SPY through Uniswap pools generated $33 million in trading volume from more than 11,000 traders during their first 12 days.
He also said some trades moved directly between stocks without passing through dollars. These figures come from Adams’ account of the pools, and should be viewed as an early data point rather than proof that the model works at traditional-market scale.
There are still several questions around the broader thesis. Tokenized assets would need sufficient liquidity, regulatory access and institutional participation for AMMs to compete across larger financial markets. Correlations can also change, potentially increasing liquidity-provider risk. And while blockchain can separate execution, custody and settlement, it does not by itself remove the costs associated with pricing, risk management or compliance.
The development is better viewed as an early test of whether onchain liquidity can extend beyond crypto-native assets. Adams is arguing that the economics could eventually favor AMMs; whether that translates into a broader change in market making will depend on how tokenized markets develop.
