Uniswap Launches UNI Governance Token With Community Airdrop

Published: Sep 7, 2020
Written By:
Shannon Ullman
Shannon Ullman
Managing Editor

Uniswap – the sector leading DEX – has released its UNI governance token with a community airdrop to anyone who has interacted with Uniswap prior to September 1st.

Underpinning the hottest governance token to date was a retroactive airdrop where any account that interacted with Uniswap V1 or V2 contracts received 400 UNI. Liquidity Providers also earned favorable rewards based on historical liquidity while the 220 holders of at least one $SOCKS (a tokenized Uniswap merchandise item) received 1000 UNI.

In total, 150,000,000 UNI – or 15% of the supply – was distributed through the community airdrop, broken down as follows:

  • 4.92% to all 49,192 historical LPs [49,166,400 UNI]
  • 10.06% split evenly across all 251,534 historical user addresses [100,613,600 UNI]
  • 0.02% to 220 SOCKS holders/redeemers [220,000 UNI]

To claim UNI rewards, simply head to Uniswap and look for the purple “UNI” box in the top right. Here you will need to submit a transaction to claim your rewards. Please note that 400 UNI was airdropped to any wallet which has ever interacted with Unsiwap, meaning many users may be eligible for multiple airdrops depending on the different number of wallets used.

UNI Liquidity Mining & Distribution

Starting tomorrow, four liquidity mining pools will open for UNI rewards. USDT, DAIUSDC, and WBTC pools will each earn an allocation of 5M UNI over the course of the next two months. This breaks down to 83,333.33 UNI per pool per day or 54 UNI per pool per block.

This intro to liquidity mining is set to be followed by formal governance over incentives after the first 30 days in which the community treasury (responsible for future liquidity mining rewards) will be vote on pools & allocations.

Outside of the liquidity mining rewards, UNI’s 1B supply is set to be broken down as follows:

  • 60.00% – Community [600,000,000 UNI]
  • 21.51% – Team [215,101,000 UNI]
  • 17.80% – Investors [178,000,000 UNI]
  • .069% – Advisors [6,899,000 UNI]

All team, investor and advisor tokens will be subject to four-year continuous locks, meaning tokens will unlock in real-time. Here’s a breakdown of how these tokens will enter the circulating supply over time.

Perhaps what’s most novel about the distribution is an ongoing 2% perpetual inflation set to kick in once all 1B tokens have been distributed. While this parameter is obviously malleable by governance, it sets a fantastic precedence for protocol sustainability.

With Binance and Coinbase both springing to list UNI less than 12 hours after launch, it’s clear that DeFi has a new cool token on the block.

In the wake of a SushiSwap attack, anon devs have now learned the golden rules of DeFi:

  1. Do not cross Andre Cronje
  2. Do not cross Hayden Adams

To keep an eye on Uniswap, follow them on Twitter or join the conversation on the governance forum.

Shannon
Shannon Ullman

Managing editor working to make crypto easier to understand. Pairing editorial integrity with crypto curiosity for content that makes readers feel like they finally “get it.”

Shannon Ullman
Shannon Ullman
Managing Editor
Managing editor working to make crypto easier to understand. Pairing editorial integrity with crypto curiosity for content that makes readers feel like they finally “get it.”