Uniswap Plans UNI Burn to Boost Governance Participation

After years of development challenges and regulatory obstacles, Adams says it is time for Uniswap to “turn on protocol fees” and align incentives across the ecosystem.

His proposal aims to evolve Uniswap into a powerful, self-sustaining network built for the next decade of decentralized finance.

Reigniting Governance and Community Alignment

Launched in 2018, Uniswap has grown from a small experiment in automated trading to a global financial platform processing roughly $1.8 trillion in annual volume. Despite its impact, Uniswap Labs—the company that created the protocol—has long remained on the sidelines of governance. That’s because regulatory pressure made active participation risky. Adams says those days are now over.

The new proposal calls for Uniswap to begin collecting small trading fees from transactions, a mechanism referred to as “protocol fees.” These collected fees would then be used to buy and burn UNI tokens, potentially reducing supply and rewarding long-term holders. Adams also suggests adding “Protocol Fee Discount Auctions,” a system that could improve outcomes for liquidity providers while keeping trading efficient.

To align incentives further, the plan would redirect fees from Unichain, Uniswap’s scaling network, toward the same UNI burn mechanism. Uniswap Labs would stop charging separate fees on its interface and wallet products to drive broader adoption. In simple terms, the protocol itself would become the economic engine, not the company behind it.

Building Toward an Onchain Economy

Another highlight is the integration of “aggregator hooks.” These would allow Uniswap v4 to route trades across multiple liquidity sources directly onchain—making Uniswap a one-stop hub for decentralized trading. The idea mirrors trends seen in 2025, where decentralized liquidity aggregation is becoming essential for efficient trading across chains.

Uniswap’s proposal also includes moving governance resources and personnel to Labs, consolidating expertise, and streamlining growth efforts. Adams believes this unified structure will let developers, liquidity providers, and governance participants collaborate toward one shared goal: making Uniswap the leading marketplace for tokenized value.