Uniswap’s native token, UNI, turned out to be one of the biggest gainers among the top 100 cryptos over the last week. UNI price spiked by more than 70% in the last seven days as traders piled into the decentralized exchange’s ambitious governance plans.
The surge comes amid a proposal to burn 100 million tokens and redirect protocol revenues to fund ongoing buybacks. This move is expected to transform Uniswap into a yield-generating ecosystem for holders.
However, the UNI price jump helped it decouple from the sell sentiment hovering in the crypto market. Bitcoin price has dipped by almost 10% over the last 7 days.
Uniswap whale activity hits 4-year high
As per the data shared by Santiment, daily whale transactions have hit a 4-year high for UNI. This was coupled with the highest amount of new Uniswap wallets created in 3 years. It added that the retail FOMO is high at the moment.
Meanwhile, it also projected another wave of rallies after the euphoria dies down. That spike would be based on the positive fundamental news and improved governance for the project.
On-chain data supports the hype. It has been reported that two wallets, likely controlled by a single whale, deposited 1.7 million UNI (worth $15 million) into Binance within hours of each other.
Separately, two wallets linked to Uniswap moved 8.2 million UNI (worth $77 million) to Coinbase Prime. These tokens were originally released to early investors five years ago.
UNI price has jumped by another 5% in the past 24 hours. It is trading at an average price of $8.54 at press time. Uniswap is still down by 81% from its all-time high of $44.97, recorded on May 3, 2021. Its 24-hour trading dumped by 46% to stand at $1.79 billion.
Uniswap eyes $650M volume with ‘UNIfication’
Uniswap Labs and the Uniswap Foundation unveiled their plan dubbed “UNIfication” last Monday. It seeks to activate long-discussed protocol fees on the platform with an aim to push it to $650 million in daily trading volume. The platform will use the proceeds for a perpetual token burn, too. If passed, the proposal would retroactively burn around 100 million UNI tokens from the treasury, pegged to fees generated since Uniswap’s inception.
An expert highlighted that Uniswap has generated over a billion dollars in annual fees since 2018, but none of that value has flowed to tokenholders. Hopefully, this proposal finally closes that loop.
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams sees the new plan as a reset moment for protocol governance. He stated that for the past five years, Labs has been unable to meaningfully participate in Uniswap governance, and “That ends today.”
Crypto attorney Jake Chervinsky, in a post, stated that the Uniswap proposal isn’t the end of the decentralized DAO model, but it’s the next generation. He highlighted that tokens like UNI can provide holders with real ownership of on-chain infrastructure and cash flows. This can go on without asking them to design and vote on every single change and improvement in the project.
He added that it’s not the same vision that many had five years ago, when DAO members were considered daily active managers of protocol development. He sees this as a progressive step as it’s a vision of a new type of capital asset.
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