Uniswap, the world's largest so-called decentralized exchange, has imposed a 0.15% fee on its most popular trading pairs; This is a move that will not benefit UNI token holders. Incredibly, Uniswap Labs founder Hayden Adams claims that this new fee is separate from the fee switching functionality of the Uniswap Protocol governed by UNI token holders.
Frustrating UNI holders with this decision, it continues a long history of ignoring Uniswap's intriguing coin offering.
In fact, UNI's price is down 91% since its all-time high. To make matters worse, Uniswap operated for two years without needing any governance tokens. Uniswap oddly bolted the UNI token into its otherwise well-functioning ecosystem on September 16, 2020, coinciding with a generous allocation to Adams and a group of insiders.
With a total value locked (TVL) of $3 billion and No. 1 on the DEX volume leaderboards, Uniswap.org is by far the world's most popular website for exchanging digital assets in a non-custodial manner . Since its establishment, it has carried out transactions worth trillions of dollars.
Uniswap charges extra 0.15% on website and wallet
The new fee will affect trading pairs containing two of the following tokens: ETH, USDC, WETH, USDT, DAI, WBTC, agEUR, GUSD, LUSD, EUROC and XSGD.
There will be no additional fees for swaps between stablecoins or between ether and wrapped ether. What's more, a Uniswap spokesperson told CoinDesk that it "wants to clarify that both input and output tokens must be listed (not just on one side) in order for the fee to be applied."
In any case, Adams' new 0.15% fee only affects Uniswap's website and wallet users (API and other on-chain users can avoid it). Developers say the new fee will help fund the protocol sustainably.
He also boasted that the 0.15% fee is among the lowest for digital asset exchanges and should not reduce accessibility to Uniswap, assuring UNI holders that the fee will fund future Uniswap-related development.
Of course, the proceeds from the UNI token sale were supposed to fund Uniswap-related developments. However, people who buy this token and vote will not benefit from Adams' new 0.15% rate, even though they have been contributing for years.
More money for the team, not for the UNI owners
There was a lot of criticism of Uniswap's new UNI exclusion fee, and many disappointed users responded directly to Adams' announcement.
Adam Cochran joked that UNI has been so neglected that Uniswap has essentially turned it into a meme coin : UNI in name only.
A long history of ignoring UNI holders
The Uniswap team had previously paid little attention to the results of UNI governance votes. For example, it took a long time to implement a wage change protocol that was passed by a large majority in each round of voting. After unexplained delays, he eventually blamed regulators.
Uniswap once ignored a 'governance' vote that passed with 100% approval.
Read more: Uniswap founder trolled for asking developers to contribute to DeFi protocol update
It doesn't help that the voting system favors parties that can afford to buy millions of UNI tokens, even temporarily. Binance, of course, refused to use customers' UNI holdings to vote on the proposals, although it likely benefited from a vote on the launch of Uniswap on BNB Chain.
While the Uniswap team will likely benefit from the new 0.15% fee on some trading pairs, UNI token holders will not see any benefits. As usual, Uniswap made a unilateral decision without asking governance token holders first.
