86M votes overwhelmingly in favour of Uniswap Foundation

Decentralized exchange Uniswap has concluded the voting process to create the Uniswap Foundation. The community demonstrated overwhelming support for the foundation, with over 86 million votes in favor of the proposal.

Source: Uniswap

Devin Walsh, Executive Director of the Uniswap Foundation, announced in a tweet late on Wednesday that the proposal to establish the foundation had “passed its final vote.” He added that the hiring process had already begun for the UF team.

Walsh also revealed in the tweet that the foundation would be ramping up the Uniswap Grants Program, hinting at a new grants announcement next month.

The general purpose of the Uniswap Foundation, as laid out in the proposal, is to foster open-source development and promote decentralized growth, along with ensuring long-term sustainability of the Uniswap Ecosystem. The foundation will focus on three key agendas – Growth, Governance and Advocacy. 

According to the roadmap specified in the proposal, grants and R&D programs will be used to stimulate protocol activity which will lead to growth. The foundation will also focus on making the governance process more efficient and act as an advocate for the broader Uniswap ecosystem.

Let’s talk money

The foundation is set to cost $74 million, which will be released by the Uniswap DAO Treasury from its $3 billion holdings. As per the proposal, $14 million will be earmarked for operational expenses that will support a team of 12 over the next two years. The foundation may approach the treasury again in six to twelve months if it deems that additional funding is required to ensure stability of operations.

The remaining $60 million will sustain the Uniswap Grants Program, which the foundation believes will last approximately three years. “ We plan to approach the Treasury for additional Grants funds when there are ~6 months of funds remaining.” the proposal added.

Source: Uniswap

The disbursement of funds will be carried out in two stages. In the first phase, $20 million will be released to cover operational expenses incurred and grants over the next two years. In the second phase, $54 million will be released by the Uniswap Treasury in six to twelve months once the foundation establishes itself as a legal entity.

Twitter court

While the community is celebrating this outcome, there were some Twitter users who questioned the degree of decentralization behind this vote.

A closer look at the voting figures revealed that the top twenty addresses accounted for more than 81.5 million or 94% of the total votes.

The initial proposal was put forth on 4 August by Walsh  and Kenneth Ng, Uniswap Grants Program’s Lead. While many in the community welcomed the idea of growing the ecosystem and promoting budding developers, others disagreed due to the massive cost behind the proposal.

Back in May 2022, the Uniswap Protocol passed $1 trillion in trading volume.