Uniswap’s native token, UNI, is flowing into the protocol’s governance mechanism but its prices are still tanking despite an increase in collateral.

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According to recent metrics from Dune Analytics, around $47.5 million in UNI tokens have been delegated to protocol governance. The dashboard also revealed that there are over 2,000 delegates and over 87,000 UNI holders.

Almost 50M $UNI delegated to governance ???? ????‍⚖️

Follow @UniswapProtocol governance via this great dashboard by @Lsquaredleland ????https://t.co/jrBuv2VfJS pic.twitter.com/PiV77RUIDk

— Dune Analytics (@DuneAnalytics) October 5, 2020

As with most DeFi governance systems, a few large addresses hold most of the voting power which effectively gives the whales control over the direction of the protocol.

Late last month, a Glassnode report delved into the Uniswap token distribution roadmap and governance plans concluding that the protocol falls far short of true decentralization. At the time, it stated that only 15 addresses control at least 10 million UNI.

Four of these are reserved for the governance treasury, and one is the airdrop distributor address. Of the remaining ten addresses, nine of them contain part of the team and investor token allocation, and the last one is controlled by Binance.

Uniswap TVL at All-Time High

Centralization concerns aside, Uniswap metrics are continually improving in terms of liquidity provision. The protocol is at the top of the list in terms of total value locked according to Defipulse.com.

TVL is at an all-time high on Uniswap at just under $2.4 billion, or 22% of the total collateral across all DeFi platforms. Over the past two months, it has surged almost 1700%, driven largely by SushiSwap and the launch of its own liquidity mining pools in mid-September.

At the time of writing the amount of crypto collateral locked across those four pools was $1.78 billion, or 75% of the total locked on the platform. The most popular pool is the ETH/USDC one with almost half a million dollars worth locked up.

The pools are currently earning 583,333 UNI per week each and will continue to do so for the next six weeks.

UNI Prices Sliding

The positive collateral figures have not helped UNI token prices, however, as it continues to slide. At the time of writing, UNI was changing hands for $3.12, down 11% on the day according to Uniswap.info.

Since the beginning of October, UNI has dumped 30% and since its peak, shortly after launch, it has lost 60%.

Like most recently launched DeFi tokens, UNI is going off the boil and being sold off as ‘degen’ farmers flock to the new latest craze.

About Author

Martin Young

Martin has been writing on cyber security and infotech for two decades. He has previous forex trading experience and has been covering the blockchain and crypto industry since 2017.