In March 2024, the Uniswap Foundation provided a grant to Atrium Academy to launch the Uniswap Hook Incubator. Today, we’ve announced a second grant of $1,200,000 to Atrium Academy to continue this vital work.

I sat down with Bhaumik Patel, co-founder of Atrium Academy to dive into how these initiatives are not only advancing DeFi but also reshaping developer education and engagement within the Uniswap community. He shared insights on their journey of continual learning, standout hook projects, and Atrium’s vision for nurturing the next generation of DeFi innovators.

What drew you to DeFi?

Curiosity sparked my interest in DeFi; the chance to build from foundational principles kept me engaged. After reading the Bitcoin and Ethereum whitepapers, I followed every rabbit hole imaginable. I studied how consensus algorithms work, the precursors to Bitcoin, and even the history of money and the modern banking system. I’m obsessed with exploring new topics through an interdisciplinary lens. It’s hard to take grand claims like “DeFi is a breakthrough in finance” or “DAOs are a breakthrough in organizational design” at face value. The intellectual journey still continues…

What made you want to delve deeper into v4 hooks?

Uniswap Protocol, as the largest decentralized exchange platform, has facilitated over $2T in trading volume. The introduction of v4 presents an unprecedented opportunity to redefine liquidity infrastructure and on-chain swapping. With v4 hooks, developers have control to make key tradeoff decisions in liquidity pool design. They’ll be able to introduce code that performs a designated action at key points throughout the pool’s lifecycle – like before or after a swap, or before or after an LP position is changed. Historically, DeFi developers were more likely to fork Uniswap’s code to build their own decentralized exchange, fragmenting liquidity. With v4, the Uniswap Protocol has an opportunity to be the home for liquidity on the internet.

What inspired you to start Atrium Academy?

Atrium Academy was born out of a need to bridge the gap between a new technology release and developer capability. Firstly, when a new, innovative technology emerges, it's incredibly difficult for developers to start building with it. Core developers often lack the bandwidth to create robust documentation, starter templates, and provide necessary technical support as they are focused on launching and evolving the technology to ensure its stability and security.

Secondly, developers typically have to rely on conceptual whitepapers, sparse documentation, and occasional hackathons to gain practical experience. There isn’t much structure or support available for building on new technologies, particularly for experienced developers. Most existing developer programs are geared towards complete beginners, leaving seasoned developers to rely predominantly on self-directed learning. While many can navigate this, it doesn't lead to the developer adoption outcomes that infrastructure companies aim for. We saw an opportunity to tailor our offerings specifically for this experienced persona.

For our partners, we aim to accelerate the adoption of new technologies; for developers, we strive to expedite the mastery of these technologies and foster the development of innovative companies.

How have you approached building the Uniswap Hook Incubator, given your background in education?

I’m fortunate to have spent the last decade working on various educational formats, from cohort-based courses and bootcamps to accelerators and hackathons. We have incorporated elements of each to design the Hook Incubator.

Cohort-based courses & bootcamps: Structure & Accountability

Developers learning new technology require structure and ongoing support to maintain clarity and accountability. Our two-month program begins with six weeks of structured learning, including instructor-led workshops, office hours, and asynchronous support. We have developed a comprehensive curriculum featuring written lessons and video recordings of all workshops.

Accelerator: Curation & Rigor

However, structure alone is not enough to ensure success. We carefully select developers who have the necessary experience and are most likely to develop successful products. Our admission process includes an application and a live interview to assess candidates' Solidity skills and DeFi exposure, ensuring that we have the best potential creators in the program.

Hackathon: Shipping Culture

As a developer-centric program, we emphasize practical application. Participants are expected to develop a capstone hook to graduate. The final two weeks are dedicated to this, culminating in a capstone hookathon. We offer nearly daily office hours and hands-on asynchronous support, leading up to a demo day where top projects are presented. Our primary metrics are the number of developers enrolled and the number of capstone hooks completed, which reflect our commitment to fostering a productive building environment.

The Uniswap Hook Incubator recently welcomed its third cohort, and received a grant to run four more. What have you learned in running this program over the last year?

Every playbook is dynamic. Running the Hook Incubator has taught us the importance of continual improvement and maintaining integrity. Everything can always be better.

Every aspect of the program, from orientation to the final demo day, is an opportunity to enhance value. We remain transparent about the uncertainties of new technology and vigilant in integrating feedback to refine our approach. Our team meets daily to discuss key metrics, feedback, and experimental strategies to ensure we’re remaining true to our core values: maintain integrity over the unknowns, and design for the community.

Can you share some of the most intriguing projects from the Uniswap Hook Incubator thus far?

From the first two completed cohorts, we’ve had 91 projects get shipped in the capstone hookathon, some of which were inspired by our “Request for Hooks” page.

There were 15+ teams that received $60k+ worth of prizes so it’s hard for me to pick our favorites but I’ll pick a few that stood out:

• UniCast: Designed to improve LP experience in certain pools by incorporating forward-looking events and market-implied volatility data into the pool’s LP fee.
• Concentrated Incentives: Optimizes liquidity incentives by incentivizing only the active tick.
• Miladay Pools: A dark pool implementation that allows a swapper to swap without disclosing their order to the wider market.
• UniCow: An actively validated service to enable Coincidence of Wants matching on any Uniswap v4 pool.
• LVR & IL Hedgehook: Improving LP experience with dynamic fees and dynamic hedging strategies.

How do you see Atrium Academy evolving over time? What do you see as its impact?

Looking ahead, we aim to deepen our partnerships within the community and explore new formats like co-founder matching and an expanded accelerator program. Beyond the incubator, we’re excited to create new learning experiences that drive developer adoption. As part of our second grant from the Uniswap Foundation, we’ll be releasing 3 new products:

• Self-paced course. For those unable to commit to the rigor of the incubator or who don’t meet our admissions requirements, we’ve shipped a self-paced curriculum with office hours and projects.
• Step-by-step guides. We’ve added new documentation for v4 to Uniswap Developer Docs, with step-by-step tutorials on key concepts.
• Live weekly events. We’re running weekly public events for devs on all things v4 and unichain that include educational workshops, guest AMAs, and project showcases

How can we better resource and support the next generation of developers?

To nurture the next generation, we need to offer developers diverse learning pathways, accommodating different backgrounds and preferences. This includes comprehensive documentation, self-paced courses (text and video), and structured communities like the hook incubator. These resources should be rich with code examples, templates, and clear methods for async or live question support.

We should provide various incentives such as hackathon prizes, traditional and retroactive grants, and venture capital, ensuring transparency about what funders seek in investment decisions.

And, we should host engaging in-person and virtual events to help prospective co-founders connect, envision, and collaborate.