The Uniswap Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is contemplating a significant move to invest $12 million worth of its native UNI tokens into the Ekubo decentralized exchange. This proposal is currently undergoing a temperature check, with the potential outcome of gaining a 20% share of Ekubo’s governance token.
Moody Salem, the founder of Ekubo, expressed the importance of this initiative for the decentralization of the Uniswap protocol’s development. He sees it as a step towards onboarding the Ekubo team as core developers. Salem, who was formerly an engineering lead at Uniswap, and one of the company’s first five employees, is known to have made substantial contributions to the Uniswap codebase.
The voting process, conducted on Snapshot, revealed that 63% of the tokens voted in favor of the proposal, with 21 million UNI tokens supporting the move and 12 million against it. Notably, five token holders played a significant role in contributing 97% of the votes in favor of the investment. The vote received participation from more than 3,500 individual token holders.
Should the proposal successfully pass a formal vote, the 3 million UNI tokens allocated for this purpose will be used to finance Ekubo’s operations and contribute to the development of the Uniswap protocol. Salem emphasized that a substantial part of the effort will be dedicated to providing public goods to the Starknet ecosystem. This includes the creation of standard token, governance, and incentives contracts written in Cairo, which are essential for scaling Starknet to a level comparable to other Layer 2 solutions.
Ekubo commits to issuing a governance token within one month of the proposal’s approval, with 20% of the token supply allocated to the Uniswap DAO’s treasury. Ekubo will maintain control over the remaining tokens and any potential distribution. This token will be native to Starknet. The proposal also involves an update to Uniswap’s licensing, granting Ekubo unlimited usage rights for Uniswap v4.
However, this proposal has faced substantial opposition, with various comments in the discussion forum raising concerns. Doo Wan Nam, the co-founder of StableLab, called for a reflection on the role of governance and accountability within Uniswap if the proposal is passed. Market-making firms, such as Wintermute and Keyrock, expressed reservations, citing issues with the implied $60 million token valuation and the rapid turnaround of the proposal, respectively.
The outcome of this proposal will have significant implications for the Uniswap ecosystem and its commitment to decentralization.