Research · Markets · Mechanism Design

Xin Wan

Staff Research Scientist & Head of Research and Data Science, Uniswap Labs

I study how decentralized markets actually behave — liquidity, auctions, MEV — and help design the mechanisms that make them work better.

Publications: 13
Citations: 150+
Talks: 12+
Apps live: 8

About

Background

I lead the Research and Data Science team at Uniswap Labs. My work sits at the intersection of empirical market microstructure, protocol economics, and mechanism design — from measuring the costs of swapping onchain to designing the auctions behind UniswapX, Unichain, and the Uniswap Liquidity Launchpad.

Before crypto, I was a quantitative researcher at AQR Capital Management, focused on equity alpha signals and portfolio risk modeling, and before that a structured products and derivatives trader at KGS-Alpha Capital Markets (now BMO Capital Markets).

I hold a Master in Finance from Princeton University and a dual degree in Mathematics and Economics (Wharton) from the University of Pennsylvania.

Open to:

Research collaboration — academic or industrial
Advising companies and consulting on projects
Guest lectures and speaking engagements

Reach out →

Research

Papers & Whitepapers

2025

Uniswap Liquidity Launchpad Hayden Adams, Alex Karys, Dingyue Liu, Eric Zhong, Diana Kocsis, Mark Gretzke, Xin Wan, Mark Toda, Maddiaa0, Joe Andrews, Ciamac Moallemi Whitepaper
The Protocol Fee Discount Auction Hayden Adams, Brad Bachu, Alex Nezlobin, Sara Reynolds, Dan Robinson, Mark Toda, Xin Wan, Zach Wong, Ciamac Moallemi Whitepaper
An Overview of Uniswap v4 for Researchers Brad Bachu, Joel Hasbrouck, Fahad Saleh, Xin Wan SSRN
Quantifying the Value of Revert Protection Brian Z. Zhu, Xin Wan, Ciamac C. Moallemi, Dan Robinson, Brad Bachu FC '25
What Drives Liquidity on Decentralized Exchanges? Evidence from the Uniswap Protocol Brian Z. Zhu, Dingyue Liu, Xin Wan, Gordon Liao, Ciamac C. Moallemi, Brad Bachu FC '25
Quantifying Price Improvement in Order Flow Auctions Brad Bachu, Xin Wan, Ciamac C. Moallemi arXiv

2024

Unichain Hayden Adams, Mark Toda, Alex Karys, Xin Wan, Daniel Gretzke, Eric Zhong, Zach Wong, Daniel Marzec, Robert Miller, Hasu, Karl Floersch, Dan Robinson Whitepaper
Don't Let MEV Slip: The Costs of Swapping on the Uniswap Protocol Austin Adams, Benjamin Y. Chan, Sarit Markovich, Xin Wan FC '24

2023

UniswapX Hayden Adams, Noah Zinsmeister, Mark Toda, Emily Williams, Xin Wan, Matteo Leibowitz, Will Pote, Allen Lin, Eric Zhong, Zhiyuan Yang, Riley Campbell, Alex Karys, Dan Robinson Whitepaper
FLAIR: A Metric for Liquidity Provider Competitiveness in Automated Market Makers Jason Milionis, Xin Wan, Austin Adams arXiv
On-Chain Foreign Exchange and Cross-Border Payments Austin Adams, Mary-Catherine Lader, Gordon Liao, David Puth, Xin Wan CoDecFin '23

2022

Uniswap v3 TWAP Oracles in Proof of Stake Austin Adams, Xin Wan, Noah Zinsmeister FC '23 WS
Just-In-Time Liquidity on the Uniswap Protocol Xin Wan, Austin Adams DuneCon '22

Projects

Recently Shipped

Live

RiskPrism

Open-source, Barra-style US equity factor risk model — 9 style factors, 30 industries, weekly artifacts, and an MCP server for AI agents.

Launch ↗ Source

Live

AMM PvP Challenge

Write an AMM fee strategy, battle other players head-to-head in realistic simulations, and climb the leaderboard.

Launch ↗ Source

Live

Mind Reader

A pattern-recognition game where a reinforcement-learning agent learns to predict your next move. Try to stay unpredictable.

Play ↗ Source

All projects →

Speaking

Selected Talks

2024

DuneCon 2024 The Evolution of Uniswap: From v1 to v4 Video ↗
FC 2024 The Costs of Swapping on the Uniswap Protocol Video ↗

2023

DeFi Security Summit · Blockchain Oracle Summit Economic Security of Onchain Oracles Video ↗ Video 2 ↗
Stable Summit Facilitating On-chain FX and Cross-border Payments with Stablecoins Video ↗
EthCC · CryptoEconDay Paris Hyper Fragmented Liquidity, Fully Adversarial Mempool, Wat Do? Short ↗ Full ↗
DeFi Cafe Paris Fifty Shades of MEV Mitigation — lightning talk
CoDecFin '23 Onchain Foreign Exchange — workshop
FC '23 TWAP Manipulation Under Ethereum PoS — workshop
HK PolyU Guest Lecture — Prof. Daniel Luo's class
ETHDenver Overview of Onchain Liquidity Provision Video ↗
ETHDenver Next Growthpole of DeFi — panel Video ↗

2022

DuneCon 2022 Data Science on Uniswap v3 & Just-in-Time Liquidity Video ↗

Media

Uniswap Labs Research Hour Series — co-host Watch ↗
Bell Curve Podcast Episode on Order Flow Auctions Listen ↗

Community

Positions & Service

2025 Co-organizer — Economics of Liquidity Provision, with CBER and the Columbia Center for Digital Finance
2024 Advisory Committee — Design of Blockchain-Enabled Markets Conference
2024 Program Committee Chair — The Latest on DeFi Research (TLDR)
2023 Program Committee — ACM CCS Workshop on Decentralized Finance and Security
2023 Judge — ETHGlobal Paris Hackathon

Career

Experience

Dec 2021 — Present Staff Research Scientist, Head of Research and Data Science — Uniswap Labs
Jun 2019 — Dec 2021 Quantitative Researcher — AQR Capital Management
Aug 2015 — Jun 2018 Trader — KGS-Alpha Capital Markets (now BMO Capital Markets)

Education

2018 — 2020 Master in Finance — Princeton University
2011 — 2015 B.A. Mathematics & B.S. Economics (Wharton) — University of Pennsylvania

Contact

Get in Touch

Or email directly: nflswanxin (at) gmail (dot) com