DeFi Protocol Uniswap Announces Its Native Governance Token UNI, Creates A Massive Buzz

Ethereum-based decentralized exchange and wildly popular Uniswap protocol announced its native governance token UNI on Wednesday, September 16. The announcement itself created a massive buzz since Uniswap is the most-used platform by DeFi protocol.

The launch of the UNI governance token will bring a massive liquidity boost to the platform. The lenders on Uniswap will now receive rewards in the form of UNI governance tokens and will attract more liquidity providers (LPs) over a period of time.

Uniswap has announced that it plans to distribute around 1 billion UNI tokens over the next four years. Out of the total supply, 60% will go to the Uniswap community members, 21.5% will go to Uniswap employees, and the remaining 18.5% will go to investors and advisors.

Uniswap has automatically allocated 400 UNI tokens to any wallet that interacted with the Uniswap protocol before September 1. The aggregate value of the 400 UNI tokens is currently more than $1200, a considerable reward for early adopters of the platform.

Moreover, over 66 million tokens allocated for just using the Uniswap protocol have been already claimed just within 24 hours of launch.

The Uniswap’s native UNI token has been launched in direct competition with SushiSwap. Both, Uniswap and SushiSwap hold a massive value of DeFi tokens locked within its protocol.

In its official announcement, Uniswap wrote: "Uniswap is now particularly well positioned for community-led growth, development, and self-sustainability. The introduction of UNI (ERC-20) serves this purpose, enabling shared community ownership and a vibrant, diverse, and dedicated governance system, which will actively guide the protocol towards the future.”

Since its launch, the UNI token price has already surged by 45% and is currently trading at $5.23 with trading volumes crossing $2.7 billion. In the official announcement, Uniswap has made it clear that the UNI holders shall be responsible for ensuring that the governance decisions happen in compliance with the applicable rules and regulations.

Speaking about the long-term plans, the blog post mentions: “We hope to see a variety of experimentation, including ecosystem grants and public goods funding, both of which can foster additional Uniswap ecosystem growth. Uniswap has set the standard for automated liquidity provision: it is now time to set the benchmark for responsible but radical, long-term aligned on-chain governance systems”.

It looks like the DeFi market is likely to grow very rapidly looking at the current onslaught of several liquidity protocols and the investors’ interests.