Uniswap’s UNI token rose about 19% over the past 24 hours as on-chain voting began on a major government proposal that would enable protocol fees and introduce a long-discussed UNI burning mechanism.
UNI began climbing shortly after the voting period opened at 03:50 UTC on December 20, according to Uniswap management data. A one-day UNI-USD chart from TradingView shows the sharpest leg of the rally unfolding in the early hours of the voting window, with the price breaking out of the $5.40-$5.50 range and continuing to trend higher throughout the day, along with increasing trading volume.
Around At 19:30 UTC, UNI was trading near $6.27, up about 19% on the day. The move stood out against a relatively muted broader market, with bitcoin consolidating near $88,300 and ether trading slightly lower around $2,976. The total crypto market capitalization increased by around 1% during the same period, underscoring UNI’s relative outperformance.
The vote centers on a sweeping government proposal known as “Unification”, a name that reflects its aim to align Uniswap’s financial incentives, governance structure and development efforts under a single framework. If approved, the proposal will implement protocol fees across Uniswap v2 and select v3 pools, directing these fees into a programmatic mechanism that burns UNI tokens.
The proposal also includes a retroactive burning of 100 million UNI from the treasury, meant to approximate the amount that could have been burned if protocol fees had been active since Uniswap’s early years. Additional components will direct Unichain sequencer fees into the same burning mechanism and introduce new auction-based systems designed to internalize MEV while improving liquidity providers’ returns.
In addition to fee activation, the proposal formalizes a closer operational alignment between Uniswap Labs, the Uniswap Foundation and on-chain governance. Under the plan, Labs would focus on protocol development and growth while removing fees from its interface, wallet and API. Development and ecosystem initiatives will be funded through an administratively approved growth budget.
Although Uniswap governance has discussed enabling protocol fees for years, previous efforts to do so have stalled due to regulatory uncertainty and disagreement over incentive design. The opening of formal on-chain voting appears to have catalyzed renewed market interest, with traders positioning themselves around the opportunity for direct value addition tied to Uniswap’s dominant trading volumes.
Early voting data showed overwhelming support for the proposal, though voting remains open until 1 p.m. 18:14 UTC on December 25th. Although the outcome is not yet final, the timing of UNI’s rally suggests that the market is reacting to the start of the governance process itself and the prospect of a structural shift in how value flows back to the UNI holder.
