With the support and hostage of a number of VCs such as a16z and Paradigm, Uniswap has embarked on a distinct operation and management development path. After the FTX thunder, Uniswap has become the most successful Internet Fintech company in the Web3 world today.

As of now, Uniswaps market share in the DEX market has exceeded 80%, and its weekly trading volume can reach a huge US$16 billion, which is several times higher than other competing products. After the team recently announced the opening of the front-end transaction fee function, its teams approach to divestment from the protocol has become more obvious, and it has found a compromise and feasible way for Web3 entrepreneurs.

Corporatization of team operations: compliance, compliance, or compliance

As the absolute leader in the DeFi field and a typical symbol of the permissionless world of Web3, Uniswaps every move affects the development direction of the entire industry. But upon closer inspection, we will find that Uniswap is not a Web3 team under the mainstream definition, but an American Internet startup.

It can be said that Uniswap is truly unique in the Web3 world, which is reflected to a certain extent in its corporate team operation and management.

All-American Team, Uniswaps executive appointment and employee management

From the personnel appointments of Uniswap Labs executives, you can’t tell that this is a Web3 start-up team. From regulatory compliance to experience with major Internet companies, Uniswap has it all.

May 19, 2022, Uniswap in BlogMake an official announcement, announced that Salman Banaei will serve as head of policy department of Uniswap Labs.

Before joining Uniswap Labs, Salman worked in public service at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and later in charge of public policy at Chainaanalysis. During his tenure at the CFTC, Salman led the Dodd Frank team to implement reforms to the U.S. derivatives market after the financial crisis. He was recognized by then CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler (yes, that was him) and awarded the Outstanding Staff Award.

In the announcement of Uniswap Labs’ appointment, Salman wrote: “Uniswap Labs reflects the Dodd-Frank Act’s goal of democratizing the market and Nakomoto’s goal of reducing friction in value transfer. The Uniswap protocol it created is a breakthrough invention that enables Our goals in the series of Dodd-Frank reforms that the CFTC is working to implement. As with the Internet protocols before it, the true potential of this technology will only be realized through constructive and engaged public sector leadership.

Earlier this year in March, Uniswap invited Chad DePue, former senior engineering director of Snap Chat parent company Snap Inc., to serve as vice president of the engineering department of Uniswap Labs.

During his tenure at Snap, Chad DePue led the development of many popular mini programs such as Snap Minis, Snap Kit, and PlayCanvas, and later served as CTO at Whisper App. After leaving Whisper App, Chad served as Vice President of Engineering and Head of Developer Tools at BlackBerry and Microsoft. After joining Uniswap, Chads main task will be to bring his experience in building simple, secure and seamless products, including mobile products, to the Uniswap Labs team.

Chad DePue said in his announcement that Uniswap founder Hayden was an important reason for him to join the Uniswap team. “When you meet Hayden, you will quickly realize that he is one of the few with the vision needed to make a huge impact. and smart people...Strong leadership from Hayden and others based on an inclusive vision and ethical commitment will be critical to Web3 attracting the next wave of users.

On July 21st, Uniswap even moreAnnounceNews that heavyweight executive Will Ruben has joined as vice president of product.

Will Ruben previously led the team at Coinbase responsible for the Web3 social experience in Coinbase and its wallet application. Before Coinbase, Will worked at Meta (formerly Facebook) for 9 years. He was the head of the Feed and Relevance departments of its Instagram team, leading the release of Instagrams content ranking algorithm, interest search and other key products.

After a decade working at large technology companies, I was drawn to the challenges and opportunities of leading a smaller, more entrepreneurial company with significant potential to grow over the next decade, Will wrote in the announcement. … We can’t unlock universal ownership or make the global financial system more inclusive without simple, high-quality user experiences built on web3 protocols. Uniswap Labs is at the heart of this work, and I’m excited to Bringing my experience in building consumer products at scale, especially mobile products, to this outstanding team.

Compared with most leading Web3 projects, in addition to its absolute advantages at the executive level, Uniswap also has a very complete and compliant process in employee recruitment and management.

According to BlockBeats, the Uniswap team currently has a hundred employees, and there is a clear division of labor in terms of department functions. Open Uniswap official websiteRecruitment interface, the first thing that comes to mind is this passage:

The Uniswap protocol is the largest decentralized exchange and automated market making protocol on Ethereum... The Uniswap Labs team is a major contributor to the Uniswap protocol and is now focused on building a suite of products to support the Uniswap ecosystem. Our The team is one of the most influential in the cryptocurrency space. We are headquartered in SoHo, New York City, and depending on the role, we have the option to work partially or fully remotely.”

Currently, Uniswap Labs is mainly divided into three departments: engineering, growth and strategy, and finance and compliance. Among them, the engineering department has the most positions, with 7 positions currently being recruited. Entering the application details page, we can learn about the full-time employee benefits of Uniswap Labs:

1. Minimum annual salary of $180,000 to $220,000, disclosed in accordance with New York City’s Pay Transparency Act;

2. Other compensation elements such as equity and tokens are determined according to the specific position type;

3. Unlimited and encouraged leave, and up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave;

4. All medical expenses for myself and my family members will be reimbursed;

5.401(k) plans (U.S. pension plans);

6. Educational stipend of $1,500 per year;

7. A home office setup allowance is provided for remote employees and lunch is provided for those working in the New York headquarters.

In addition, Uniswap Labs is an EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity Employer) company and provides equal employment opportunities to qualified individuals with disabilities in accordance with U.S. law. According to the official website, Uniswap Labs aims to have at least 7% employees with disabilities. To this end, applicants must fill out a very detailed questionnaire when applying for a position and refill it every five years after joining.

But there is a prerequisite for obtaining these attractive benefits, that is, you must be a laborer who can legally work in the United States, and all benefits are subject to corresponding taxes.

Uniswap application interface questionnaire, image source from Uniswap.org

Previously, BlockBeats reporters had posted during the Token 2049 eventFrontline reporting, Uniswap Labs CEO Mary-Catherine said at the event that Uniswap’s team is located in the United States and has a physical office in New York City. But despite this, Uniswaps products, wallets, and web applications are available globally. Uniswap is really paying attention to the growth in the Asian market and is committed to making Uniswap an international product brand.

Vice President of Product Will Ruben, who joined in July last year, is a New York native. He wrote in the announcement: As a native New Yorker, I think there is no better place to build this future than New York City, and Hayden is here. , MC, Cal, Chad and the talented team at Uniswap Labs.”

There is actually an interesting thing here, that is, many of the leading Web3 brands that advocate decentralization are in a Web3 elite circle similar to the New York small group, the most famous of which should be BanklessDAO.

BanklessDAO is also in New York and maintains an excellent relationship with Uniswap Labs. If you look carefully, you will find that many of Uniswaps products are released through BanklessDAOs media channel, including heavyweight product iterations such as Uniswap V4. Of course, these are all things for later.

BanklessDAO founder and Uniswap founder Hayden (below) live broadcast to announce Uniswap V4, image source from YouTube

Team and protocol divested, Uniswap Labs becomes a centralized startup creating open source products

After Uniswap recently announced the launch of front-end fees, many views in the community believe that Uniswap Labs is gradually divesting itself of its connection with the Uniswap protocol. But in fact, this goal has been on the agenda since the company was founded.

On August 11, 2021, in order to clearly distinguish Uniswap Labs from the Uniswap protocol, UniswapMake an official announcementThe logo has been updated. Today, users can also find detailed information on the Uniswap official websiteLogo Trademark Usage Guidelines。

Uniswap Grants hired well-known designer Timothy Luke to draw new logos for the Uniswap Protocol and Uniswap Labs respectively, so that users can clearly visually distinguish the differences between the Uniswap Protocol and Uniswap Labs, and further define their respective functions, responsibilities and governance tasks. .

Uniswap update logo in 2021, Uniswap protocol logo on the left, Uniswap Labs logo on the right, image source from Uniswap.org

The official announcement reads: “The two are sometimes confused with each other, but they are actually completely different things: the Uniswap protocol is a set of on-chain, immutable smart contracts that facilitate peer-to-peer transactions, while Uniswap Labs refers to the software development effort Labs build and maintain products typically associated with the protocol. Uniswap Labs is one of hundreds of companies building products on top of the protocol, and may one day build products away from the protocol.”

Subsequently, on April 11 of the following year, Uniswap Labs officiallyestablishedUniswap Labs Venture is co-led by Teo Leibowitz and MC Lader, Chief Operating Officer of Uniswap Labs.

According to the official announcement, Uniswap Labs Venture’s function is to “support Web3 projects at all stages, from basic frameworks to development tools, and consumer-oriented applications.” At the same time, Venture will also actively participate in the governance of multiple protocols to support their development . According to BlockBeats statistics, since its establishment in April last year, Uniswap Labs Venture has invested in 9 projects including Para Finance, Wallet Connect, Rain, etc., and participated in multiple protocol governance processes including MakerDAO, Aave, Compound and ENS.

The main purpose of Uniswaps establishment of the Venture department is to further clarify the functional division of Uniswap Grants and separate the economic behavior and revenue of the Uniswap Labs team from the development of the Uniswap protocol ecosystem. After the Venture part was established, Uniswap established the Uniswap Foundation in the same year to operate independently with other entities in the ecosystem such as Uniswap Labs.

According to the official website information, Uniswap Foundation is a non-profit organization in Delaware, USA. Its goal is to support decentralized finance, decentralization and sustainability. Funding for the Uniswap Foundation is provided by the Uniswap community through community governance proposal approval. Support the DeFi community through the three pillars of growth, innovation, and management, and provide resources and support initiatives to promote the long-term sustainability of DeFi.

One of the main purposes of Uniswap’s divestment of the protocol and team is to gain more room for maneuver and even advantages in terms of regulatory compliance.

BlockBeatspreviously reported, after the SEC called HEX an unregistered security in its lawsuit against Richard Schueler and his project Hex, Uniswap immediately removed its token HEX from the Uniswap trading interface. Today, in the list of unsupported tokens in the Uniswap interface, the HEX token is accompanied by a general note stating that the protocol blocks tokens that violate trademarks, have been proven to be scams, or are based on other legal considerations.

Trading of HEX tokens is prohibited on the Uniswap web page. Image source comes from Uniswap.org

In addition, in a class action lawsuit in April this year, the U.S. Southern District Court of New York judge also dismissed the accusation against Uniswap. Hayden, the founder of Uniswap, called it a huge victory.

Court documents from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York indicate that the Uniswap platform is capable of, and in many cases operates legally Responsibility for conduct.

The judge believed that the plaintiffs were harmed by fraudulent token issuers who used Uniswaps core contracts and relays to raise funds, and Uniswap only played a role in building a platform. At least according to U.S. securities laws, this does not mean that Uniswap is responsible for fraud. and consequent damages.

Compared with the previous arrest of the Tornado Cash team, which also played a role in protocol or platform development, the verdict in this case is even more intriguing.

Related Reading:What does the US court’s “friendly judgment” against Uniswap mean for DeFi regulation?》

Recently, the reason why Uniswap has been able to enable the front-end charging function is also due to this operating method of separating the team and the protocol. As a trading protocol that provides tokens or unregistered securities, Uniswap cannot directly bring revenue to the team by charging fees due to regulatory reasons. However, Uniswap Labs can build compliant front-end user products based on this open protocol and create revenue through this product.

If a certain token is sued by the SEC or other regulatory authorities like HEX, its front-end trading can be stopped immediately, so that the team and the product itself are freed from the regulatory risks they may face.

Roman dualistic governance: being a good friend of VC

Haydens innovation and forward-thinking have created opportunities for Uniswaps development, but at the same time, the impact of early investors and capital on Uniswap cannot be ignored. The support of capital has given Uniswap more resources and development opportunities, but it has also brought more governance and direction challenges.

The participation and support of capital has, on the one hand, brought about the rapid development of the project and the expansion of the community. On the other hand, it has also caused changes in the power structure, raising suspicions of hijacking the project. There are voices in the community that the capital side is no longer content with its role as a supporter, but is trying to exert more influence in the decision-making process, even threatening the decentralized nature of the project.

Drama with early investors

Ric Burton, the former CEO of Balance.io, had a public dispute on Twitter with Uniswap founder Hayden Adams at the beginning of this year, which attracted widespread attention. Among them, Ric Burton used the revealed insider information and some screenshots as evidence to try to prove that the relationship between him and Hayden Adams is different from what the outside world knows.

Back in 2018, Ric described his deep friendship with Hayden and the joint efforts the two made for the cryptocurrency industry and the Uniswap project. At that time, Ric was the CEO of Balance.io, and his company focused on providing interface services for Dapps on Ethereum. Ric believes that most Dapps have a lot of room for improvement, so he funded multiple projects including WalletConnect, The Graph, and Uniswap.

Hayden, an early entrepreneur, picture source comes from the Internet

Haydens unique insights into automated market makers (AMM) and his enthusiasm for the project made Ric take a keen interest in him and decided to help him. During that time, the relationship between the two was extremely close, and Ric even said that he was a friend who was willing to take a bullet for Hayden.

But as time went on, especially in March 2019, things started to change. While attending his grandmothers funeral, Ric received an email from the co-founder of Balance telling him that he needed to resign as CEO. During this period, Uniswaps situation was improving day by day, and Hayden Adams successfully raised $1 million in funds. Ric originally thought he would be asked to work on the project, but Paradigms involvement changed everything.

After discovering that he did not receive Uniswap dividends, Ric felt deeply betrayed by Hayden. It was not until the start of the UNI Token project that Hayden proposed repaying the money, but the proviso was that Ric needed to sign an NDA. In a rage, Ric decided to file a lawsuit against Hayden.

Hayden said in his response that Rics remarks were extremely misleading and a complete lie. At that time, Ric Burton did get the opportunity to invest in Uniswap. I sent him a simple future equity agreement with a blank amount ( Simple Agreement for Future Equity) so that he could fill in the amount he wanted to invest, but he chose not to do so because his company Balance could only maintain operations for about one month at the time.”

Hayden and Ric’s chat history, picture source from the Internet

In the end, both parties took a step back, and Hayden also expressed his gratitude to Ric for his role in the development of Uniswap and made no further response.

In the eyes of outsiders, the drama with Ric seems to have left an impression on Hayden of being in conflict with investors. But in fact, Uniswap in the Web3 team is closer to a joint-stock company controlled by a board of directors than any other project, and this board of directors is the several giant VCs behind Uniswap.

Invasion of Major Shareholders, Capitals Support and Hijacking of Uniswap

August 6, 2020, according toSEC filings show, Uniswap development company Universal Navigation Inc. has completed US$11 million in financing on June 5. This round of financing was led by a16z, with participation from USV, Paradigm, Version, etc. It was at this time that a group of Silicon Valley Web2 capital giants entered Uniswap.

In the governance chess game of Uniswap DAO, a16z is undoubtedly a pivotal player. They not only actively participated with their 15 million UNI votes, but also delegated the governance rights of approximately 40 million UNI votes to multiple external institutions. One of the most impressive examples for the community is that when it was decided to deploy Uniswap V3 on BNB Chain, more than 80 million UNI votes participated, far exceeding 50% of the UNIs participating in governance voting.

Uniswap originally planned to enter BSC through wormhole, but a16z unexpectedly voted against it, hoping to open a path for LayerZero, which they invested in. Meanwhile, a16z competitor Jump Trading has made it clear that they support Wormhole. When the dust settled, Wormhole finally became the bridge for the Ethereum-based Uniswap DAO governance on BNB Chain due to the voting advantage of UNI tokens obtained.

Judging from the absolute number of votes, Uniswap’s so-called community is actually insignificant. The real “talkers” in Uniswap’s development are still the capital tycoons behind it.

According to DAO governance researcher @lurenbianobserve, since the entry of giant VCs, Uniswap DAOs Temperature Test has rapidly soared from an initial participation of only 34,000 UNI votes to nearly 30 million votes for the latest proposal. From official data, we can see that a total of 31 proposals have been submitted, 28 of which have been implemented, showing a pass rate of 90%.

Among these proposals, multi-chain deployment has become the main theme, but the vote changes are not regular. @lurenbian told BlockBeats in an interview that for operations such as multi-chain deployment, as long as VCs are justified, there is almost no chance of failure. For projects on the underlying chain, being able to access Uniswap liquidity is a huge benefit without any harm. It is also a win-win situation for VCs.

Uniswap governance proposal statistics, source from @lurenbian

Another example that illustrates this point is the Educational Fund case. After selling 500,000 UNI and receiving 10.2 million USDC, the proposal for the DeFi Education Fund (DeFi Education Fund, referred to as DEF) caused strong dissatisfaction in the Uniswap community. The proposal ultimately received 72.64% of the vote, and after announcing the allocation of 1 million UNI from the Uniswap treasury, DEF will announce a detailed budget within 90 days. But things did not go as expected. Before the community knew the allocation of funds for the 1 million UNI, DEF suddenly announced that it had sold 50% of it.

Some observers from the community have raised doubts, pointing out that the proposal is likely to be led by Uniswaps main investor a16z, and they wonder whether there is a situation of own proposal and vote. Although all doubts disappeared after Uniswap founder Hayden expressed support for DEF, the community has gradually realized that in the so-called governance of Uniswap DAO, only major shareholders and the board of directors have the final say.

The product strategy follows the Web2 approach: legitimacy is on the sidelines and market share is at the core.

In the process of pursuing market advantage, Uniswap obviously did not simply follow the open and decentralized concepts of the traditional Web3 team. Uniswap Labs has implemented more Web2 product strategies, which are designed to quickly attract and retain users to ensure that it maintains a leading position in the competition of decentralized trading platforms.

Commercial licenses, plagiarism, classic Internet stories

In June this year, Uniswap announced the launch of the V4 version after nearly two years, causing an uproar in the community. For a time, the Hooks function introduced in V4 was called the DEX killer by many people. However, what is more eye-catching with the major updates on the product side is that Uniswap V4 continues the implementation of the V3 version and has a BSL commercial license with doubled validity time.

The Business Source License aims to find a balance between the open source spirit and commercial needs. During the validity period, third parties are not allowed to use the source code to conduct any commercial activities without permission. For Uniswap, this is another business killer in addition to its product innovation. It is precisely because of the protection of BSL that Uniswap V3 became popular in its era. After the two-year BSL validity period of V3 ended, various V3 Forks emerged one after another.

Therefore, when Uniswap implemented the BSL commercial license for the V4 version, this decision once again caused considerable controversy in the developer community.

Uniswap founder Hayden firmly believes that BSL is the correct decision that is most in line with the Uniswap community. During the ETH Paris event, Hayden responded to BlockBeatss question on the matter: It all depends on the governance decision. Hayden said that for those UNI holders who disagree with this choice, they can propose changes through a governance vote. However, in the eyes of most people, there is no substantial difference between them here and Uniswaps VC shareholders.

Interestingly, the license controversy of the V4 version has not yet subsided, and Uniswap has been hit by the plagiarism controversy again.

On July 17 this year,BlockBeats reports, the decentralized trading platform Uniswap announced the launch of the non-custodial, Dutch auction-based protocol UniswapX. According to official announcements and documents, UniswapX will gradually implement many functions such as aggregation of liquidity sources, resistance to MEV, and Gas-free transactions, with the aim of making DEX gradually comparable to CEX.

UniswapX has had high hopes since its launch. Paradigm researcher Dan Robinson spoke highly of UniswapX on social media, I think UniswapX has changed the rules of the game for decentralized exchange, MEV and interoperability.

But soon, the community pointed out that UniswapX was plagiarizing the CoWSwap mechanism, and the previously launched V4 version was suspected of plagiarizing CrocSwap. Curve Finance responded to Dan Robinson with its official Twitter account, Dan, with all due respect. The rules of the game changed a long time ago: when 1inch first did high-quality aggregation, when CoWSwap launched the Solvers model. UniswapX is good , but it’s not the originator or even the second player.”

CoWSwap officials also sent out several tweets, saying Uniswap is welcome to further verify its transaction design, insinuating that Uniswap imitates its mechanism.

Related Reading:It’s a mixed bag of praise and criticism, is Uniswap “Tencent in the currency circle”?》

In response to the V4 plagiarism issue, Uniswap Labs development members like BlockBeats said that the Uniswap team started the development of the V4 version as early as two years ago, but the CrocSwap team released the white paper early, but the progress of product development was too slow until Uniswap was forced to launch its own new products only after launching V4.

In fact, for Uniswap, open source and innovation are not the ultimate magic weapons to win in the Web3 world, but product development and operation capabilities, just like an Internet company. Once you have an idea and source code, consider registering a copyright or BSL before entering the product development stage.

We hope to see others make more innovative innovations, rather than blindly fork and plagiarize, a Uniswap Labs developer member told BlockBeats. From this perspective, it is easy to understand Uniswap’s strategy and ideas: buy time for the Labs team’s product innovation through the BSL license, and at the same time control as much market share as possible. After the license expires, V 5 or other new products with more crushing strength have also been launched, and most of the new users are also Uniswap users.

A large number of projects such as CrocSwap and CoWSwap adhere to Web3 open sourceism. On the one hand, their RD and innovation capabilities are not as good as Uniswap, which has a large number of people. On the other hand, they are also making slow progress in product development. In the future, they may only publish white papers. capabilities and lost almost all advantages in sustainable development.

Pursue market share and analyze Uniswap’s product line

Judging from the monthly trading volume data from 2019 to 2023, Uniswap has performed very well, with trading volume far exceeding other DEXs. Although it was attacked by the vampires of Sushi Swap in the early days, Uniswaps market share has been increasing since its inception. Now it accounts for 80% of the DEX, firmly occupying a dominant position.

Uniswap trading volume and market share data, source from Dune Analytics

Compared with the V3 version released two years ago in May 2021, V4 has more free and flexible asset composability and significantly reduces the Gas fees required to provide liquidity and transactions. A key improvement included in V4 is the introduction of Hooks, a smart contract mechanism that expands developer customizability. Hooks enable developers to add logic after an exchange or between blocks.

With the support of the new function Hooks, developers do not need to develop a new DEX. They only need to customize liquidity in Hooks and add front-end pages and elements that meet their own needs to open a customized place that allows everyone to A developer creates a customized DEX that meets the needs of the scene and builds his own Lego bricks. This is why community developers lamented, If you cant beat it, just join, and you wont have to do DEX in the future.

Since the continuous iteration of V2, V3 to V4, and then to the launch of UniswapX and Uniswap Wallet, Uniswaps product line has gradually expanded and enriched, covering back-end open source protocols, third-party development APIs and liquidity aggregators, as well as mobile users Entrance and other fields, its tentacles extend to all aspects of Web3 transactions.

Uniswap product line structure

In addition to the back-end Uniswap open protocol, Uniswap Labs currently has three main products to achieve absolute market share in the Web3 trading market, namely the web trading application and mobile wallet, the new V4 version that introduces Hooks, Singleton and other functions, and the introduction of off-chain UniswapX, a liquidity aggregator with matching function.

Based on the Uniswap open protocol and the global attack of V4, Uniswap further squeezes other DEX competitors in terms of protocol layer and contract back-end calls, and gradually achieves a comprehensive monopoly. Secondly, the team can also enter the aggregator market through UniswapX and use its absolute advantage in protocol layer liquidity to suppress aggregator protocols such as 1inch and CoWSwap.

In addition, when users enter the Uniswap Web3 trading interface, they can clearly see the link that Uniswap guides users to download its wallet products.

With the promotion of Uniswap Wallet products on the mobile side, the Uniswap team can attract Web3 light and Web2 users on the one hand, and squeeze the Web3 wallet product market launched by exchanges such as OKX and Bybit on the other hand. At the same time, it can also open the Web and mobile terminals. The front-end charging function creates a large amount of cash flow revenue for Uniswap Labs without regulatory risks, killing three birds with one stone.

Uniswap web interface, image source from Uniswap.org

When BlockBeats asked about Uniswap’s potential monopoly issues, a team member raised his hand and said, “This is not an issue we have to consider.”

UNI doesn’t need empowerment? The Web3 entrepreneurial outlet explored by Uniswap

On November 2, 2018, Uniswap was publicly announced and deployed to the Ethereum mainnet. At an exciting, anxiety-provoking moment, I tweeted the announcement to my 200 or so followers. For many, This was the first time they had heard about the project. For me, it was the highlight of over a year of work and tremendous help along the way. Uniswap changed my life.”

Haydens early writing for Uniswap can be found on the Uniswap official Blog page.A brief historyandvision statement. In the article, Hayden expressed his original intention in founding Uniswap: to bring Web3 to everyone.

You have to admit, Uniswap did it. At the same time, it has also found a compromise path for countless Web3 entrepreneurs that is feasible in terms of economic returns and protocol development, that is, the separation of the team and the protocol.

In an interview with BlockBeats, an Amazon Cloud employee said: Now the needs of Web3 customers (teams and projects) are very simple, which are nodes and APIs. In the final analysis, it is because there are no real C-side requirements for Web3 applications. In comparison, the needs of CEX customers are much more complex.”

In fact, in the Web3 world where all interactions rely on Web2 cloud vendors, Uniswaps approach can provide a lot of reference value for Web3 entrepreneurs.

In the future development process of Web3, entrepreneurs no longer need to use the slogan of decentralization, but focus on protocol innovation and openness of use, by creating open protocols with actual C-side application scenarios, and Utilize C-end customer demand and front-end API fees to create revenue and achieve sustainable development. The back-end contract calls can still be used without permission, like Tornado Cash. This may be the true future of the Web3 world.

Of course, the most embarrassing thing is the UNI token and all future project tokens that adopt this style of play. UNI itself was a product that emerged under the pressure of Sushi Swaps vampire attack. After Uniswap Labs further separated from the protocol, UNIs role became even more embarrassing. If it plays the role of team equity, UNI is affiliated with the Uniswap protocol rather than Labs, and the two are two different entities. At the protocol level, VC giants will not agree to radically empower UNI due to regulatory factors.

In the end, users are still paying for their beliefs. However, there is also a saying: Assets without empowerment are the most imaginative assets.