Uniswap’s new governance token is up 110% on the day; with nearly 30k addresses claiming the free 400 UNI tokens offered to historical liquidity providers.
Close to 30,000 addresses hold the newly launched UNI token, a governance token for the decentralized trading platform Uniswap.
The number is set to grow even further given the appetite within the DeFi space for the new token, now listed for trading on major cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Coinbase. The token launch comes days after rival Sushiswap (SUSHI) looked to attract liquidity off Uniswap.
Users rush to claim almost $1,500 in free UNI tokens
Uniswap minted 1 billion UNI tokens at genesis, with 15% or 150 million immediately made available to historical liquidity providers and SOCKS holders as of a September 1 snapshot.
The entirety 1,000,000,000 tokens will be released into circulation over the next four years, with 60%, or 600,000,000 UNI, reserved for community members. The remaining 40% will be allocated as follows: 21.51% to Uniswap team members and future employees, 17.8% to investors and 0.69% to advisors.
Uniswap’s governance treasury is retaining 430,000,000 or 43% of the 600 million set aside for the community for ongoing distribution via various programs, including liquidity mining, and contributor grants.
Uniswap has said in a blog post that “a perpetual inflation rate of 2% per year will start after 4 years, ensuring continued participation and contribution to Uniswap at the expense of passive UNI holders.”
As of writing, 29,988 addresses have already claimed their allocation of 400 UNI tokens in 111, 109 transfers.
According to Etherscan.io, the circulating supply for the new token is 170 million, with over $39 million worth of UNI tokens traded in the last 24 hours.
The token is changing hands around $3.6107 per data on Astrotools.io, up nearly 110% since its launch. The Uniswap token has a market capitalization of over $468 million.
Sushiswap (SUSHI) competitor
Many within the crypto space are looking to the launch of UNI tokens as likely to dent Sushiswap, cloned from Uniswap and which aimed at ‘stealing’ liquidity from the original Ethereum-based AMM.
SUSHI/USD was trading around $1.49 as of press, down 12% in the past 24 hours and over 50% in the red over the past week.
A week ago, nearly $900 million worth of assets moved from Uniswap to Sushiswap, dropping the former’s total value locked from over $1.68 billion to just over $520 million within hours.
According to DeFi Pulse, Uniswap and SushiSwap account for the fourth and fifth-highest amounts in total value locked at $766 million and $724 million respectively. Aave commands 14.5% of the $8.9 billion in TVL with $1.46 billion, followed by Maker at $1.24 billion and Curve at $1.01 billion.
It is expected the number of addresses holding UNI tokens is set to balloon given industry leaders Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin and FTX have all added support for the token.