Recently, I saved some money in Uniswap V4, so I seriously studied the hooks of Uni.

Many people have privately told me that after Uni launched V4, they did not feel the same sense of amazement as when V3 was launched. The main reason is that the concept of 'hook' itself is too abstract and is directly blamed.

Rather than being directly translated as 'hook', I personally think it would be better to interpret it as a 'plugin'.

The hook itself is meant to add some functionalities to the pool that go beyond Uni itself. Its documentation emphasizes at what time hooks can be called, but most people do not care about this; it would be better to explain what hooks can actually do.

[Examples of Hook Usage]

-- For example, it can limit access to your created pool, such as ETH-USDT, to certain specific addresses only;

-- Or, it can allow your pool to charge higher fees during busy times and lower fees during idle times;

-- Or, it can even allow your pool to operate without the X*Y=K curve (PS: probably inspired by Curve at that time 😂).

In summary, you can freely develop all sorts of functionalities that you need, which Uni's official team might never release.

It's a bit like the Creative Workshop on Steam, where the official team stops producing and allows others to create freely.

Another change is that in the past, there were only two profitable niches on Uni: LPs and traders, and both would take money from each other 😂.

After V4, with hooks, it actually allows some script kiddies to have profitable niches as well.

You write a hook, and others can pay to use your hook when they create pools (selling... hooks?).

Each pool can use one hook plugin, but one set of hook plugins can be subscribed to by countless pools, with a relatively low marginal cost.

There is a website called Hook Rank that includes hundreds of hooks, showing how much money various hooks have earned. Currently, one of the most commonly used hooks, Flaunch, has already made the developer over a million dollars.

What does it do? With its hook, you can create a pool for a meme coin and direct the fees of that pool in any proportion, for example, 80% to your own wallet and 20% for buybacks.

Fortunately, when Trump Jr. launched $Trump, he didn't know about this feature; otherwise, wouldn't he direct all the fees to the future world finance 😂?

Moreover, as the saying goes, only competitors understand you best. Later, Pancake also decisively introduced hooks, but instead of calling it V4, they named it Pancake Infinity. Of course, that's another story for another time.

In conclusion, hooks are quite an interesting thing, worthy of being named V4.