The Uniswap decentralised exchange’s governance token airdrop is a good example of rewarding users for participating in early testing of the project. This view was expressed to ForkLog by the evangelist Waves Technologies, co-founder of the Neutrino and Gravity protocols, Alexey Pupyshev.
On September 17, Uniswap released the governance token UNI. A few days later the exchange conducted a governance-token airdrop: 184,000 users received 113.17 million UNI.
In total, Uniswap will issue 1 billion governance tokens. Over four years, the project’s community will receive 60% of the UNI issuance.
Uniswap’s actions have sparked a debate in the crypto industry. Market participants disliked that large holders received a significant slice of UNI.
Alexey Pupyshev highlights the critics’ arguments in favour of the Uniswap airdrop:
- high concentration of UNI among a small number of users could lead to centralisation of the exchange;
- token holders will use them for speculation, and not for governance of the project.
In Pupyshev’s view, these concerns are unfounded. It will not be possible to completely eliminate the risk of centralisation of the platform, but it can be minimised.
“Theoretically, a person or company could obtain a ‘majority’ stake of governance tokens through a thousand accounts. An active community, in which users publicly announce the tokens they have received, would help avoid such a scenario,” says Pupyshev.
Alexey notes that this is exactly what happened in the case of Uniswap. Large UNI holders have disclosed their governance tokens and shared how they plan to use them.
Pupyshev notes that a large share of UNI has gone to large players.
“Users had been staking substantial sums for months and risking significant money. It is fair to reward them with governance tokens,” says he.
Pupyshev believes that large players will not speculate on UNI’s price. They view the tokens as a tool to influence the platform’s development.
“With governance tokens, a player with a multi-million crypto portfolio can secure more favourable trading terms,” says Pupyshev.
Alexey believes that for ordinary UNI holders it’s more of a speculative instrument. But even they can participate in governance if they delegate their votes to large members of the community.
Earlier ForkLog reported on the Waves and Fantom partnership to develop a DeFi ecosystem based on the Gravity protocol.
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