Uniswap’s long-running debate over how or whether the protocol should return value to UNI holders is close to being resolved.
The protocol’s “UNIfication” proposal has already passed quorum, with more than 69 million UNI tokens voting in favor and virtually no opposition as of Monday. Voting is open until December 25, but the margin suggests the outcome is largely decided.
At the heart of the proposal is a change that UNI holders have been waiting for years: activation of the “fee-shifting” protocol.
The proposal would redirect a portion of the trading fees – about one-sixth – to a protocol-controlled pool. These fees will then be used to burn UNI tokens, reducing the supply as trading activity grows. Despite being the largest decentralized exchange in crypto, Uniswap has so far directed all trading fees to liquidity providers, leaving UNI as a governance-only token with no direct financial connection to the platform’s activity.
The proposal effectively transforms UNI from a pure management token into a value-added asset by directly linking the token’s value to the exchange’s daily trading volume.
Based on current volumes, the fee shift could translate into about $130 million a year flowing into the burn mechanism, which CoinDesk analyzed in November.
Alongside the fee change, the proposal includes a one-time burn of 100 million UNI from the treasury, worth about 940 million dollars in current prices.
Uniswap processes close to $150 billion in trading volume each month across more than 30 blockchains, according to DefiLlama data.
Supporters argue that flipping the fee switch finally brings Uniswap’s scale in line with its token economy, making UNI something closer to a cash-flow linked management asset rather than a purely speculative one.
The proposal also reshapes Uniswap’s internal structure. It consolidates Uniswap Labs and the Uniswap Foundation under a single operational and financial model, shifting away from a grant-heavy governance approach to a more execution-driven setup focused on growth, distribution and protocol competitiveness.
