Two new Uniswap governance proposals passed on Wednesday, securing around $177 million worth of UNI token-based funding for the Ethereum DeFi protocol’s Foundation to help support the growth of Uniswap V4 and Unichain—while potentially paving the way for “revenue activation,” as well.
The proposals both received more than 80% support from voters, and will lead to the distribution of nearly 29 million UNI tokens—now valued around $198 million, due to a price jump following Wednesday's successful passage—to support the protocol’s growth.
This request is a big one, and we understand it. This is an investment in the future of Uniswap Protocol, Unichain and the Uniswap Community,” said Uniswap Foundation’s Executive Director Devin Walsh.
Nearly 73% of approximately 29 millions tokens is earmarked to Governance Proposal #83The book is called “Uniswap Unleashed.” This proposal, which calls for investments to fund operations and the Uniswap Foundation grants budget, outlines four strategic priorities for the protocol in the years ahead–one of which focuses on “activating revenue.”
In other words, this priority outlines some of the groundwork for what could ultimately provide Uniswap protocol revenue back to delegators and UNI token holders—frequently dubbed the “fee switch.”
In the beginning, the Foundation would investigate the benefits of creating a new legal entity, which could provide greater legal clarity in implementing the fee swap, and also allow it to enter into contracts with other entities. In the event that the Foundation decides this is the right path to take, it will create proposals or introduce them again in order to implement the fee switch and provide revenue from protocol tokens back into the hands of token delegators.
Temperature checks performed previously fee switch designs Uniswap Governance forums have debated these proposals for many years, but no one has yet to pass them.
Uniswap protocol revenues first saw a big jump at the beginning of 2021, and have since risen to over $4.4 billion in total revenue according to DefiLlama. This protocol generated over $1 billion during the calendar year of 2018.
The UNI token is down 2% from its current $6.83 price in the last day, but has risen nearly 18% since the beginning of the week. This is almost 85% less than the $44.92 all-time token high from May 20,21.
Andrew Hayward is the editor
