Uniswap, the second largest decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) by trade volume, almost $ 1 trillion in annual volumes, but holders of token the platform say that the success is not shared with them. Uni holders went to X this week to call that the rising statistics from Uniswap did not provide them, income, income share or other structural benefits.
The commotion on X started after the founder of Uniswap Hayden Adams published a message on Sunday, September 21, with the statistics of the platform and said: “Always funny to see people posting,” and further added that the volumes of the protocol “at all times” more than $ 1 trillion per year are more than the first time.
Top Dexs by trade volume. Source: Token Terminal
Data from the token terminal shows that Uniswap is approaching $ 1 trillion marking for the annual volume, only next to Pancakeswap, which has already surpassed $ 1.1 trillion in the past year.
The post of Adams led to an immediate response in the crypto community, which was not satisfied with how things unfold for Uni holders. Arca Chief Investment Officer Jeff Dorman shot back on the Uniswap founder and said in an X -post that uni has become a “complete nonsense token in the current market and changing regulations.”
“Everything you and your VCs stand for is not relevant. Use income and purchase, or have no trouble having a sign,” Dorman added in the X post.
Crypto investor Mike Dudas also responded yesterday to Adams’ Post and said: “Reasonable to ask why there is no value to make 5 years after the TGE[.] Almost every other major Defi -Primitive has now discovered this[.]”
From the moment of the press, Uniswap (Uni) is traded at $ 8.13, with 81.7% decrease compared to May 2021, when it reached a record high at $ 44.92, according to the Price Training page of the Defiant.
Uni all-time price card. Source: Coingecko
Although the argument that the high volumes and income of the DEX do not directly benefit Uni holders, it was repeated by various prominent commentators, some people also pointed to the parts themselves.
Pseudonymous Defi analyst JPN Memelord wrote in a Monday X message that about 5% of Q3’s $ 270 billion in trade volume on the version of Uniswap for the basis came from a “honeypot network” or a malignant smart contract that creates tokens that are untenable.
“The bots do not even pay the front -end -allowance to Uniswap Labs, this is simply a volume because of the volume (or possibly money laundering),” the analyst added.
Third parties get it all
The uni -token launched in September 2020 mainly acts as a governance instrument, allowing holders to vote on reimbursement structures, but so far none of those mechanisms have made real economic profit for token holders.
Earlier this year, analysts from the Defi report pointed out in a research memorandum that more than 99% of the value created by Uniswap went to third parties such as liquidity providers, MEV -Bots and Ethereum -Validators. Since May 2020, Uniswap has paid more than $ 4.5 billion in trading costs to liquidity providers, according to data from TokenTerminal.
Total trading costs paid on Uniswap. Source: Token Terminal
However, Uniswap Labs, the developer of the Uniswap protocol, was not left behind. The Defi report notes that the team has activated a reimbursement for users who traded on Uniswap via the web interface
The report states that the interface costs Uniswap Labs have generated $ 50 million in the first six months of his activation.
In total, all rates set by Uniswap Labs have surpassed per press labs per press time, according to data from the token terminal. The Defi reporting analysts also note that uni holders and investors “have not received any reimbursement income to date.”
Uniswap did not respond immediately to the Defiant request for comments about the plans of the Platform for Uni’s Tokenomics.
Focus on Unichain
Technically, the Uniswap Foundation tried to tackle this problem at the beginning of 2024 by having Uni holders set their tokens to earn part of the protocol costs.
A snapshot in March showed support, but the plan was put on hold after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had issued a Wells knowledge to Uniswap Labs, claiming it operated as a non -registered stock exchange and that Uni could be considered a non -registered security. Although the SEC dropped its indictment in February of this year, the regulatory uncertainty joked the initiative.
The Defi Report analysts suggested that the launch of Uniswap from Unichain, a Layer 2 protocol on the optimism -superchain, uni -holders could ultimately enable part of the economic upward design of the protocol to be made of Validators with Validators to be earned with Validators Liquidity providers.
Unichain TVL. Source: Defillama
But from the moment of the press, that potentially is not materialized, with data from Defillama having the total value that have been locked (TVL) in Unichain has fallen steadily since the end of July and now levels of approximately $ 360 million are located around April.
