Thanks for putting together this proposal and appreciate @Gauntlet’s background research on optimising UNI incentive strategies. Some thoughts below:
What is the anticipated drop in liquidity and/or trading volumes once incentives end?
A critical challenge that extends across the entire industry is user and liquidity retention. While incentives are effective in bootstrapping initial liquidity (Unichain) and migrating liquidity (Uniswap v4), due to their nature, they cause a temporary boost in activity, that is deemed to decrease once the incentives are over.
The recent retrospective from Forse Analytics on UNI incentives on Uniswap v3 on Base highlights this issue, showing difficulties in retaining users, liquidity, and volumes post-incentives.
As @Matt_StableLab noted, while some LPs moved to Aerodrome, a larger portion simply exited rather than switching to a direct competitor. This suggests broader structural challenges in retaining users and liquidity.
A clearer sense of potential post-incentive trends would help in setting expectations around the long-term impact of the program.
Also, brainstorming ways to improve retention seems like a worthwhile effort alongside deploying incentives. Highlight on alongside - this incentives program remains an effective strategy for the first step of the funnel.
Finally, as a side note, ecosystems like Arbitrum and Optimism provide their own incentives, as mentioned. Is there a plan to align Uniswap v4 with these programs and benefit from them?