Governance & Proposals

UNI governance controls every aspect of the Uniswap protocol: protocol fee toggles, treasury allocations, grant distributions, and the V4 hook ecosystem. Understanding the governance process helps you participate or evaluate how Uniswap will evolve.

🗳️ Governance Process — Step by Step

Forum Discussion

⏱ 48h minimum

Post AIP draft ongov.uniswap.org. Gather temperature check — in/out sentiment from community. No token required.

On-Chain Submission

⏱ After temp check

Submit via Governor Bravo with 15M UNI yes-vote threshold for fast-track, or 15M total to move to vote.

Voting Period

⏱ 7 days

UNI holders vote for/against/abstain. Votes are weighted by veUNI holdings. Quorum requires 40M UNI participating.

Timelock Execution

⏱ 24h after vote

If passed, the Timelock (3/6 multisig) queues and executes the transaction. Cannot be reversed.

Implementation

⏱ After timelock

Core team or delegates execute on-chain changes: contract upgrades, treasury transfers, parameter changes.

🏛️ Treasury Wallet & Allocations

The Uniswap DAO treasury holds both UNI tokens and ETH/USDC from protocol fees. Governance votes on allocation every quarter. Major allocations as of 2026:

Ecosystem Grants

Developer grants, research, integrations, community initiatives

$80M

~22%

Liquidity Mining

Incentive programs to bootstrap new pool liquidity on V4 and cross-chain

$120M

~33%

Protocol Development

Core team funding, audits, infrastructure, UniswapX development

$100M

~28%

Treasury Diversification

Conversion to ETH, staked ETH, and stablecoin holdings for runway

$60M

~17%

🔑 Key Voting Metrics

UNI Supply

1B (fixed)

Quorum Required

40M UNI

Fast-Track Threshold

15M UNI

Timelock Delay

24 hours

Proposal Lifetime

7 days

Treasury (2026)

~$700M

Active governance participants: Typically 50–150 wallets voting per proposal, representing 60–200M UNI (6–20% of supply). Large wallets (>$1M UNI) dominate outcomes. Average voter turnout is 0.02% of token holders per vote — participation is a known challenge.

📜 Notable AIPs & Their Outcomes

AIP	Title	Outcome	Date
AIP-1	Initialize protocol fee switch	Passed	Jan 2023
AIP-6	Enable fee on mainnet V3 pools	Passed	Mar 2023
AIP-12	Treasury diversification into ETH	Passed	Jun 2023
AIP-20	Uniswap V4 hook ecosystem grants	Passed	Nov 2023
AIP-28	UniswapX protocol integration	Passed	Apr 2024
AIP-35	veUNI staking model activation	Passed	Sep 2024

How governance shapes the protocol

Uniswap governance is intentionally slow-moving. The 48-hour forum period, 7-day vote, and 24-hour timelock give time for affected parties to respond and for the community to scrutinize technical changes. The 40M UNI quorum is high enough that passing a proposal requires genuine alignment, but low enough that apathetic token holders can still be outvoted by engaged minorities.

The Timelock controller (a 3/6 Gnosis Safe) is a known criticism: a 3/6 multisig can execute changes without full token holder consent if the signers agree, effectively making governance advisory rather than binding. Uniswap Labs (the business entity) controls 2 of the 6 keys, and the remaining 4 are held by advisors — this means Uniswap Labs can block any proposal it disagrees with, a point of concern for maximalists who want full on-chain democracy.