Two former Uniswap Lab executives' $74 million idea for a new Uniswap Foundation has recently become a reality after receiving more than 99% of the votes from UNI token holders. The foundation's initial plan calls for streamlining the Uniswap Grant Program (UPG) and lowering friction in the protocol's governance structure.
Devin Walsh, a former executive at Uniswap Labs who is currently the executive director of UF, tweeted the outcomes on August 24 and stated that the foundation proposal "passed its final vote!" The foundation received more than 86 million votes, or 99% of the total, in support of the idea, with only 770 votes against it, according to the Uniswap website. The votes come despite the first idea receiving a mixed reception from the public when it was initially made public on August 5.
The voting period began on August 17 and ended on August 24 at 2:19 PM GMT +10. Voters have to possess the UNI token in order to cast their ballots on the Uniswap app. A minimum of 40 million votes have to be cast in support of the UF in order for the vote to pass. Walsh claimed that the UF has already "hit the ground running" on its main priorities, which include expanding the UPG, "reinvigorating governance," and interviewing "brilliant, values-aligned applicants" to join the team.
The Uniswap Foundation is seeking candidates for the positions of Community Lead, Partnerships Lead, Governance Lead, Grants Analyst and Leads, Communications and Finance Leads, Developer Relations and Protocol Leads, among others, according to its job board.
Decentralized ?
However, others on Twitter have questioned how much influence the community actually has on Uniswap decisions, despite the votes being strongly in favour of the UF.
Chainlink Community Ambassador "ChainLinkGod," who has 150,200 Twitter followers, said that Uniswap's decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) rather than a centralised foundation should "control how monies generated are used." Another member of the community said that the vote was a "whale run," with the top 20 addresses receiving 81.57 million votes, or 99.7% of all tokens used to cast a ballot.
In order to hire a team of 12, Walsh and Ken Ng, who is now the head of operations, have asked the Uniswap decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) treasury, which now contains more than $3 billion in UNI tokens, for $74 million. The UF intends to give $60 million of the $74 million to the Uniswap Grant Program (UGP) and use the remaining $14 million to pay for operating expenses.
By trading volume, Uniswap is the biggest decentralised exchange (DEX) in the planet. The protocol has facilitated more than $1 trillion in cumulative volume since Uniswap's launch in November 2018, with its daily volume frequently vying with that of centralised exchange Coinbase.
