Extension of Uniswap Incentive Campaign Infrastructure (UniV3 + UniV4 Merkle Router Oracles)

Requests for Comment
1

Summary

With reference to the Unichain and Uniswap v4 Liquidity Incentive Proposal passed last year, this proposal requests approval to extend the infrastructure that powers the current Uniswap liquidity incentive programs.

The middleware contracts used to route and deploy incentives (Merkle Router Oracle contracts for UniV3 and UniV4) were originally deployed with a fixed end date of March 10, 2026, as the initial proposal was structured for a 12-month program.

Because these contracts have an immutable expiration timestamp, they cannot be extended. To continue running incentive campaigns beyond March 10, 2026, new versions of these middleware contracts have been deployed with a new expiration date of March 10, 2030.

This proposal requests governance approval to:

  • Remove the expiring middleware contracts
  • Register the newly deployed contracts
  • Enable campaign creation through the new contracts

No other components of the system are being modified.

What Is Changing (and What Is Not)

What is changing:

  • The Merkle Router Oracle contracts used to route incentive campaigns will be replaced with newly deployed versions.
  • Incentive routing will move from the old contracts to the new ones.

What is NOT changing:

  • The Aera vault remains the same.
  • The final incentive distribution contracts remain the same.
  • Incentive budgets, token parameters, and governance structure, including DUNI’s ability to withdraw UNI from the Aera vault, remain unchanged.
  • No new permissions are introduced.

This is a backend infrastructure update required due to the fixed expiration of the original middleware contracts.

Why Governance Approval Is Required

The contracts being replaced are owned by the Uniswap timelock.
Because of this, updating them requires an on-chain governance proposal.

There is no way to modify the expiration date of the existing contracts. The only path forward is:

  1. Deploy new middleware contracts with a later expiration date.
  2. Have governance formally register them.
  3. Transition campaign routing to the new contracts.

Without this approval, once the current contracts expire on March 10, 2026, it will no longer be possible to create new incentive campaigns.

Next Steps

The proposal will follow the standard Uniswap governance process.

The proposed process is:

  1. Collect feedback from the community on this forum post.
  2. Submit a Snapshot vote to signal community approval for registering the new middleware contracts.
  3. If the Snapshot vote passes, submit the corresponding on-chain governance proposal to execute the contract updates via the Uniswap timelock.

Because the existing middleware contracts expire on March 10, 2026 , and the governance process requires time to complete, there may be a brief period where new incentive campaigns cannot be created while the proposal progresses through Snapshot and the on-chain vote.

1 Like
2

Thanks for the proposal.

From what I can tell, the technical one-year restriction with this UNI was meant to purposefully limit the duration of these incentives. Totally respect that the full allotment of incentives wasn’t used up entirely, which indicates cognizance around unfavorable market conditions, etc.

However, further justification around this extension is warranted since the initial proposal indicated:

It would also be helpful to understand how much is left to be allocated from the Aera vault—either for Unichain, v4, or both. Presumably, $32M total has been allocated according to this post. Since UNI fluctuated a lot over the past year, my hunch is that the dollar amount is at a surplus from the initial request of ~$45M. Would be helpful to see more data on this.

Given that, what’s the new disbursement timeline since the proposed expiration date is 2030? Does this prolonged duration mean there will be an ask for more incentives soon?

And who is the intended manager of these remaining incentives? Is optimization/decision-making conducted by Gauntlet, UF, or Labs?

If the rationale for utilizing the remaining incentives aligns with further v4 growth, especially with hooks or in observing v3 to v4 liquidity migration, continuation may make sense. But it’s much harder to justify Unichain incentives without a more clear strategy.

1 Like
3

I will be voting against this proposal.

In plain language, what is being requested is for the DAO to allow Gauntlet to spend ~$10M with no publicly defined objectives, no clear deadline, and effectively no DAO oversight.

I had abstained from commenting earlier, hoping that Gauntlet would provide more details — know they have been asked privately — but the proposal has now reached the Snapshot voting stage.

First, the proposal is written in a disingenuous way, framing the change as a purely technical extension. In reality, approving it would allow incentive campaigns to continue beyond the original timeline and objectives.

Second, judging from the original proposal, the incentive campaign only had clearly stated goals for the first six months. The 12-month limit already extends beyond that. Time limits exist for a good reason. It may be prudent that the incentives were not spent in full! But that does not give Gauntlet a mandate to run them indefinitely.

The DAO should have a meaningful say in how these incentives are used. Historical performance of Gauntlet’s campaigns (not limited to Uniswap) should be considered as part of that discussion.

There are currently 2,662,156 UNI tokens in the Aera vault, which is more than $10M at current UNI prices. The proposal notes that “Uniswap Governance maintains the ability to claw back the remaining allocated funds.”

4

The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Manugotsuka, and is based on our combined research, fact-checking, and discussion.

First of all, we would like to thank Gauntlet for bringing this proposal forward and for their continued work supporting the Uniswap ecosystem.

It would be helpful to hear the Uniswap Foundation’s (@devinwalsh) perspective as the original program proposer to better understand whether this extension still aligns with the strategic goals that originally motivated these incentives.

At the moment, our main concern is that the extension of the incentive infrastructure is being proposed without sufficient clarity on the outcomes and lessons learned from the original program. Before supporting an extension, it would be helpful to better understand the performance of the incentives already distributed.

We would also appreciate more context around the remaining funds in the Aera Vault, the intended strategy for their use, and who will ultimately be responsible for managing these incentives.

For now, we are leaning against this proposal, but with additional clarity on these points, we are open to revisiting our position.

5

Hi all - an update and additional context here:

Over the last several months, incentive spending through this vault has been deliberately small. The Foundation has been making pool and budget recommendations since late last summer, with Gauntlet handling review and execution - a shift we previewed with the Foundation Feedback Group in September 2025. In practice, that’s meant running targeted experiments to win specific markets on v4 across specific chains, not broad-based campaigns.

After discussing it with the Gauntlet team, we think the better move is to hold off on extending this program. Instead, we’d suggest future incentive campaigns come through as separate proposals - each tightly scoped to a specific opportunity with its own budget and goals, informed by what we’ve learned from these smaller experiments. We appreciate Gauntlet’s ongoing support throughout this program.

With that in mind, we’d recommend governance not move forward with this proposal. We’ve been in contact with Gauntlet and they’ll be cancelling the Snapshot.

4 Likes
6

Appreciate the additional context. Will the remaining funds in the Aera vault be returned to the DAO’s treasury?

7

If there are remaining assets previously allocated to incentives that were not used, we believe they should not be indirectly renewed by extending the contracts, as flagged by @kfx, but rather through a new proposal with clear scope, report on the intended impact and KPIs that allows the community to evaluate the impact of past incentives and decide whether a renewal is justified, as @eek637 just stated. In the meantime, we understand that the funds must be returned by @gauntlet to the DAO treasury.

We also agree with those who noted that a 4-year extension is excessive. Annual timelines exist to allow oversight and impact measurement; removing them would grant excessive discretion and reduce the DAO’s ability to supervise the use of its funds.