Uniswap Foundation proposal gets mixed reaction over $74M price tag

The Uniswap Labs com­mu­ni­ty has already begun mulling over a new pro­pos­al that would form a Uniswap Foun­da­tion based in the Unit­ed States (U.S.), but first, it’s going to cost $74 million.

The pro­pos­al has gar­nered mixed feed­back from the com­mu­ni­ty so far, with many prais­ing the foundation’s plans to sup­port and expand the Uniswap ecosys­tem, while oth­ers have balked at its hefty price tag. 

The Aug. 5 pro­pos­al was put forth by Uniswap Labs’ for­mer Chief of Staff Devin Walsh and Uniswap Grant Pro­gram lead Ken­neth Ng, not­ing the foun­da­tion’s main aim is to “sup­port the Protocol’s decen­tral­ized growth, rein­vig­o­rate gov­er­nance, and serve as a Pro­to­col advo­cate” accord­ing to Walsh.

If it pass­es a vote, the Uniswap Foun­da­tion (UF) would be incor­po­rat­ed in Delaware and head­ed by Walsh as exec­u­tive direc­tor, while Ng will become head of operations. 

To make her vision a real­i­ty, Walsh has asked for $74 mil­lion in UNI tokens over three years, $60 mil­lion of which would be used for its own Uniswap Grant Pro­gram (UGP), while anoth­er $14 mil­lion will be used as “oper­at­ing bud­get” to build out a team of 12.

Uniswap is the world’s largest decen­tral­ized exchange (DEX) by trad­ing vol­ume. Uniswap V3, the third ver­sion of the DEX has done $793.8 bil­lion in vol­ume over the past 24 hours, putting it on par with cen­tral­ized exchanges (CEXs) Huo­bi Glob­al and KuCoin accord­ing to CoinGecko.

Uniswap founder Hay­den Adams pro­claimed in an Aug. 4 tweet that he was “Sooo excit­ed about this pro­pos­al.” Adams seemed con­fi­dent that the pro­pos­al would pass when he added, “After this pass­es, the Foun­da­tion will be yet anoth­er team work­ing towards a future where the Pro­to­col does not just sur­vive — it thrives!”

5/ The strength of an ecosys­tem grows with each addi­tion­al team build­ing and work­ing towards its success.

Imo, after this pass­es, the Foun­da­tion will be yet anoth­er team work­ing towards a future where the Pro­to­col does not just sur­vive — it thrives!

— hayden.eth (@haydenzadams) August 4, 2022

Although the pro­pos­al has so far enjoyed a fair amount of sup­port from Adams and oth­ers in the Uniswap com­mu­ni­ty, it has run into a sig­nif­i­cant cohort of detrac­tors who say the price is far too high.

Part­ner at Cin­neamhain Ven­tures Adam Cochran shared his approval for the goals of the UF, but added in an Aug. 4 tweet that the $60 mil­lion for the UGP “is mis­guid­ed at this phase.”

1/17

So I don’t mind the pro­pos­al to cre­ate a Uniswap Foun­da­tion — and I think its got decent planning.

But $60M to UGP is mis­guid­ed at this phase.

Uni Grants Pro­gram has thus far deployed ~$7M in grants so and its frankly been under­whelm­ing.https://t.co/Ri3VNOBh6c

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 4, 2022

Cochran point­ed out that the $7 mil­lion in grants that the cur­rent UGP has already issued have been spent on “under­whelm­ing” issues. He con­clud­ed that while there have been sev­er­al worth­whil ven­tures the UGP has invest­ed in, “I don’t think the cur­rent per­for­mance mer­its “Give us $60M + $14M to run it for 3 years.”

Relat­ed: Aave DAO approv­ing over­col­lat­er­al­ized sta­ble­coin splits cryp­to community

Co-cre­ator of decen­tral­ized game Dark For­est Scott Sunar­to also felt that the UF’s goals were in line with the protocol’s poten­tial for growth, but that there was too much “fluff” in the pro­pos­al. He sug­gest­ed the UF con­cen­trate efforts on “pro­to­col growth and R&D.”

The pro­pos­al will be put to a final vote on the Snap­shot gov­er­nance vot­ing plat­form on Aug. 8 if the cur­rent ongo­ing straw poll passes.

UNI is up 1.4% over the past 24 hours, trad­ing at $9.04 accord­ing to CoinGecko.