Everything you need to know about swapping, earning, and participating in Ubeswap — the native DeFi protocol on Celo. Can't find what you need? Visit the team page for contact information.
Ubeswap is a decentralized exchange and automated market maker built natively on the Celo blockchain. It launched in 2021 and has since processed over $1.5 billion in cumulative trading volume across more than 224 trading pairs.
Unlike Ethereum-based DEXes such as Uniswap or SushiSwap, Ubeswap runs on Celo — a mobile-first, carbon-negative network built for real-world payments. Gas fees on Celo are a fraction of those on Ethereum mainnet, frequently under $0.01 per transaction. That makes small trades genuinely worthwhile.
The protocol also supports Celo-native stablecoins like cUSD, cEUR, and cREAL as primary trading assets. That particular combination isn't available on any other chain.
You have four options: MetaMask, Valora, WalletConnect, and Coinbase Wallet. Valora is the mobile-native Celo wallet and typically offers the smoothest experience on a phone.
For MetaMask users — you'll need to add the Celo network manually first. Go to Settings → Networks → Add Network and enter: Network Name "Celo Mainnet", RPC URL https://forno.celo.org, Chain ID 42220, Currency Symbol CELO, Explorer https://explorer.celo.org. Once that's set up, click "Connect" in the top-right corner of Ubeswap and choose MetaMask.
WalletConnect is compatible with dozens of mobile wallets. Scan the QR code using your preferred app. The connection typically completes in under ten seconds.
UBE is the native governance and reward token of the Ubeswap protocol. Total supply is capped at 200 million UBE. At the time of writing, around 174 million UBE are in circulation, placing the market cap near $80,000.
There are three primary ways to use UBE. First, stake it or pair it with other assets in liquidity pools to earn farming rewards. Second, take part in governance votes that shape protocol parameters, fee tiers, and new pool listings. Third, simply hold it — as protocol activity grows, so does demand for UBE.
The token price currently sits near $0.0005. A low price doesn't imply low value; what matters is the protocol's trading volume and the governance influence UBE holders wield.
Smart contract risk is a real factor in DeFi — no protocol can claim to be entirely risk-free. That said, Ubeswap's core AMM contracts are forks of the well-established Uniswap V2 codebase, which has protected billions of dollars across multiple chains since 2020.
The protocol has been operating on Celo mainnet since 2021 without a major exploit. The team has undergone security reviews, and the contracts are open-source so the community can inspect them at any time. You can review the codebase on GitHub.
As with any DeFi platform, only deposit what you can afford to lose, use a hardware wallet for significant positions, and verify token contract addresses before trading unfamiliar assets.
Head to the Swap tab after connecting your wallet. Select the token you want to sell in the top field and the token you want to receive in the bottom field. Enter the amount.
Ubeswap will automatically identify the best route across its 224+ pools. You'll see the estimated output, the price impact, and the minimum amount you'll receive after slippage. The default slippage tolerance is 0.5%, which suits most pairs. For low-liquidity tokens, you may need to raise it — 1% or 2% is often sufficient.
Press "Swap", confirm the transaction in your wallet, and you're finished. The entire process usually takes under 10 seconds on Celo — a stark contrast to Ethereum, where you'd wait longer and pay considerably more in gas.
When you add liquidity, you deposit two tokens into a pool in equal value. Other traders draw on your funds to execute swaps, and you earn a portion of the 0.3% trading fee on every transaction that passes through your pool.
To begin, click "Pool" in the navigation, then "Add Liquidity". Choose the two tokens you'd like to pair — for example, CELO and cUSD. Enter the amount for one side; the protocol calculates the other automatically based on the current ratio.
You'll receive LP tokens representing your share of the pool. These LP tokens can often be staked in the Earn section to collect additional UBE rewards on top of the trading fees. The top farms currently yield between 18% and 25% APR.
Keep impermanent loss in mind. If the price of your deposited assets diverges considerably, you may end up with less value than if you had simply held them. Stablecoin pairs like cUSD-USDC carry much lower impermanent loss risk.
The Earn tab displays all active farms sorted by APR. Three pools have consistently delivered the strongest returns: the CELO-USDC farm at roughly 25%, the CELO-USDT farm near 22%, and the USDGLO-USDC farm around 18%.
APRs shift based on total value locked and UBE price. A higher TVL in a farm means the same UBE rewards are divided more ways, which pulls APR downward. Check the Earn tab directly for live figures.
For lower risk, stablecoin pairs keep your exposure to volatile assets minimal. If you're comfortable with more volatility in exchange for higher potential gains, farms involving WETH or other non-stable assets may be worth exploring. Visit the Ubeswap app and click Earn to see the current lineup.
Yes — this is one of Celo's genuinely practical features. The network lets you pay gas fees in cUSD, cEUR, or other Celo-native stablecoins instead of CELO. You don't need native CELO to interact with Ubeswap.
To enable this, open your wallet settings and switch the gas fee currency to cUSD. MetaMask doesn't support this natively, but Valora and many WalletConnect-compatible wallets do. It's a significant usability advantage for newcomers who bridge stablecoins from other chains.
Gas costs remain low regardless — a typical swap on Ubeswap costs well under $0.05 in gas, which is essentially negligible compared to performing the same transaction on Ethereum mainnet.
Slippage is the gap between the price you see when submitting a trade and the price you actually receive when it executes. Price impact is how much your own trade shifts the pool's price — larger trades in shallower pools create higher price impact.
Ubeswap displays both values before you confirm. If price impact exceeds 3%, you'll see a yellow warning. Above 5%, it turns red. These warnings aren't cause for alarm, but they do suggest either splitting your trade into smaller portions or selecting a pool with greater depth.
The slippage tolerance setting acts as your safety net. If the market moves beyond your tolerance between submission and execution, the transaction reverts and you pay only the gas fee. Setting slippage too low causes frequent reverts on volatile pairs; setting it too high means you might accept a worse price than intended.
Ubestarter is Ubeswap's launchpad feature, built to help new Celo projects raise initial liquidity and distribute tokens to early supporters. Think of it as a token presale mechanism integrated directly into the DEX.
When a project launches through Ubestarter, participants can commit CELO or stablecoins during a fixed window. At close, tokens are distributed proportionally and initial liquidity is seeded into a Ubeswap pool. This gives the new token immediate tradability from day one.
There are no active projects in Ubestarter at the moment. When one launches, it will appear in the Ubestarter tab. The Ubeswap team vets projects before listing them, which reduces — though doesn't eliminate — the risk of scams.
First, if your LP tokens are staked in a farm, go to the Earn tab, locate your farm, and click "Unstake". You'll need to wait for that transaction to confirm before proceeding to remove liquidity.
Then navigate to Pool, find your position, and click "Remove". You can choose to remove a percentage — 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% — or type a custom amount. Confirm the transaction in your wallet, and both underlying tokens will be returned to your address.
Any accumulated trading fees will also be returned at this point. They're built into the LP token value rather than paid out separately, so you'll simply receive back slightly more of each token than you originally deposited — assuming fees outpaced impermanent loss.
There are a few common culprits. Most often it's slippage — the price shifted more than your tolerance between when you submitted and when the transaction was mined. Try raising the slippage tolerance to 1% or 2% and retry.
Sometimes it's insufficient gas. Celo fees are low, but if you've manually set a gas limit that's too restrictive, the transaction will fail. Allow your wallet to estimate gas automatically.
Token approvals can also create issues. On your first swap of a new token, you need to approve the Ubeswap contract to spend it. This requires a separate transaction. Make sure the approval is confirmed before submitting the swap itself.
If none of those apply, the pool may have insufficient liquidity for your trade size. Try a smaller amount or break it into multiple transactions.
Every swap on Ubeswap carries a 0.3% trading fee. This is applied to the input token before the swap executes. The full 0.3% goes directly to liquidity providers in the relevant pool — no separate protocol fee is taken at this time.
This fee structure mirrors Uniswap V2. It rewards those who supply liquidity and keeps the incentive straightforward: more volume in a pool means more fees for its LPs. A 0.3% fee is competitive. Some DEXes charge 0.25% or less, but Ubeswap's deep Celo-native liquidity often more than offsets the minor difference.
Gas fees are separate and go to Celo validators, not to Ubeswap. These typically run under $0.01 per transaction.
Ubeswap is the largest DEX by volume and TVL on Celo, with roughly $1.02 million in total value locked. It offers more trading pairs than any other Celo-native protocol — 224 pairs and 35 tokens at last count.
Other Celo DeFi options include Moola Market (a lending protocol similar to Aave), Symmetric (another AMM), and Mobius (focused on stablecoin swaps with minimal slippage). Each serves a different purpose. Ubeswap is the go-to for general token trading and yield farming.
The honest assessment is that Celo DeFi is still developing. TVL figures are modest compared to Ethereum or Arbitrum. But that also translates to less competition for yield and lower price impact on trades. For users aligned with Celo's mission of mobile-accessible finance, Ubeswap is the natural starting point.
The best places to begin are the official Ubeswap channels. The Ubeswap app itself has documentation linked within the interface. For community support, the Discord server is active and the team responds to technical questions there.
For deeper background on how AMMs function, the Uniswap V2 whitepaper is freely available and covers the same constant-product formula that Ubeswap uses. Understanding x*y=k will clarify a great deal about how prices are determined.
If you'd like to learn about the people and mission behind the protocol, the team page covers the organization's background and philosophy. For governance matters, UBE holders vote on protocol changes — visit the forum to follow active proposals.