Uniswap founder Hayden Adams issued a statement on June 2, thanking the Ethereum Foundation (EF) for its long-term funding support and various forms of assistance, and clearly clarifying that Uniswap was not incubated by the EF. He said that he participated as an externally funded party, maintaining close personal ties with the EF rather than any institutional incubation relationship.
Adams’ Confirmation Statement on Three Specific Issues
In his June 2 public statement, Adams made three specific clarifications regarding external perceptions: First, Uniswap was not incubated by the EF; he participated in an independent capacity as an external funded contributor, rather than operating in the form of an EF-affiliated project. Second, the EF provided Uniswap with long-term funding and support in various forms, and Adams explicitly expressed his gratitude. Third, Adams said he supports the ongoing mission-structure review work currently being carried out by the EF.
Adams also explained ETH’s monetary properties in a talk on May 27: he confirmed that the claim “ETH is money” is technically valid, but noted that his interpretation differs from the general public’s understanding. In the decentralized system he envisions, all assets will be tokenized; different forms of money will compete with each other rather than relying on a single unit of account.
Governance Proposal 96: Fee-Burning Mechanisms and Voting Process for Three New Chains
Proposal 96 was activated for voting on May 24, 2026. It plans to deploy the TokenJar and Firepit fee-burn infrastructure on three new chains, matching that of existing chains such as the Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and OP mainnets, including: BNB Chain, Polygon, and Celo. Celo had previously failed in Proposal 94 due to a misconfiguration. The Celo implementation steps in Proposal 96 include transferring the feeToSetter role from Wormhole v2 to DUNI CrossChainAccount, and transferring ownership of PoolManager v4 to the same account.
BNB Chain and Polygon handle cross-chain messaging using Wormhole’s native token transfer mechanism, while Celo follows the OP-stack architecture. According to the proposal, once approved, the UNIfication fee-burning mechanism will cover a total of 11 chains beyond the Ethereum mainnet. Previously, Proposals 94 and 95 were both passed in early March 2026 with more than 62 million and 77 million yes votes, respectively.
Proposal 96 leverages the accelerated governance process enabled by UNIfication approval. It allows fee parameter updates to skip the RFC stage and proceed directly to a five-day snapshot vote, followed by an on-chain vote. According to DeFiLlama data, Uniswap’s cumulative transaction fees across all deployments have reached $5.57 billion, with annualized fees of about $477 million. BNB Chain (TVL $117 million, 30-day fees $3.53 million) and Polygon (TVL $765 million, 30-day fees $1.02 million) have not yet generated protocol revenue for UNI holders, and the fee changes have not yet taken effect on the two chains.
FAQ
What is the core of what Adams clarified: what is the exact relationship between Uniswap and the Ethereum Foundation?
In his statement, Adams confirmed: Uniswap is not an EF-incubated project. He participated as an externally funded party, and Uniswap operates independently. The EF provides long-term funding and various support. Adams expressed gratitude for this, but emphasized that this is an external funding relationship rather than an incubation relationship.
How does Governance Proposal 96 differ from the earlier Proposals 94 and 95?
Proposals 94 and 95 were both passed in early March 2026. They expanded the fee-burning mechanism to Arbitrum, Base, OP Mainnet, Soneium, X Layer, Worldchain, Zora, and Celo—8 chains in total. Proposal 96 plans to add BNB Chain, Polygon, and Celo (Celo failed in Proposal 94 due to a misconfiguration, and Proposal 96 made additional adjustments), bringing the covered chain count to 11.
How does the fee-burning mechanism for the UNI token work?
Users must burn the equivalent amount of UNI via the Firepit contract (among other steps) in order to withdraw the accumulated protocol fees on each chain from the TokenJar contract. The burned tokens are then bridged to the Ethereum mainnet and, according to the provisions of Proposal 93, sent to the burn address 0xdead. The UNIfication plan also includes a one-time retroactive burn of 100 million UNI, as part of the original vote in December 2025.
