Uniswap (UNI) is on the rise and bucking the bearish trend across the wider crypto sector, with optimism about its integration with the Polygon ecosystem continuing to bring in buyers even as the DeFi leader enjoys an uptick in activity. At the time of writing, UNI/USD is trading at around $17.16.

The leading DEX on Ethereum has seen its market capitalization surge ever since it made its way into popular scaling solution for the Layer 1 blockchain, Polygon. This development will offer Uniswap’s users the convenience of faster transaction processing and lower gas fees, and has helped UNI break into the top 20 cryptos by market cap.

Moving into the Polygon ecosystem will enable Uniswap to lower its transaction costs, a key barrier that was preventing smaller, retail investors from using its platform in recent times. This could increase its user base significantly and the uptick in activity can pump up the value of its governance token going forward.

Following the integration with Polygon, Uniswap’s community has also planned to diversify into another Layer 2 blockchain, Aribitrum, in the near future. This could make the DeFi application far more scalable and help it maintain its lead even as new DeFi players flood the market and threaten to take away its market share by offering more attractive rewards, easier interfaces and more benefits to their users.

Uniswap’s token is also being supported by an increased buying activity among Ethereum whales. According to WhaleStats, which analyzes the activity of the 1,000 largest Ethereum wallets, UNI overtook Chainlink’s LINK token to become the most traded ERC-20 token among whales.

UNI/USD Technical Analysis

On the H4 chart of UNI/USD, most of the moving averages as well as leading technical indicators MACD and momentum are exhibiting a strong bearish bias. However, the Stochastic reveals some interest among buyers as well.

Uniswap’s price remains very close to the pivot point at $17.15, which makes the situation quite precarious for buyers. A further push from buyers can see UNI rise higher towards testing resistance at $20.32 but if more sellers enter, we could see the PP break down very soon.