Uniswap’s community is currently considering the activation of fees for its liquidity pools in the decentralized exchange (DEX). It’s the most recent step in a long-running discussion about Uniswap’s protocol fees and overall financial situation.
To replenish its treasury and incentivize holders of Uniswap (UNI) tokens, the Uniswap protocol is considering implementing pool fees. The move by Uniswap to further monetize its platform by enacting fees across the board for all of its version-two (v2) and version-three (v3) liquidity pools may serve as a precedent for the vast DeFi ecosystem, in which Uniswap now holds a market share of around 70%.
According to Getty Hill, the author of the proposal, in a statement to CoinDesk, if Uniswap is successful in generating revenue by creating a high-quality open-source protocol with widespread usage, it may encourage others to do the same. He expressed hope that this will challenge existing industry practices.
According to DefiLlama data, Uniswap v2 has approximately $1.2 billion in total value locked and has seen daily volume on Ethereum averaging around $367 million over the last week. Uniswap v3, which is used on networks including PancakeSwap, SushiSwap, Curve, and Balance, has a total value locked of about $2.9 billion.
The specifics of how the protocol would collect and allocate the fees and the type of initiatives that the tokens would finance are still under discussion, according to Hill. The community will work out these details through community-based conversations before the proposal is put to a formal vote.
Community members have called before to turn on fee switches for Uniswap liquidity pools. The Uniswap community got divided over a proposal to switch on fees last summer. Opponents of the idea expressed concerns that it would have wider tax repercussions for the protocol and its users, which ultimately prevented the proposal from gaining enough support.