karpatkey is supportive of the work the Uniswap Foundation has been doing over the past few years. The UF has consistently delivered high-quality outcomes while fostering a welcoming and engaging environment for governance participation. Their efforts have played a crucial role in shaping Uniswap’s ecosystem, ensuring it remains both innovative and inclusive.
With the introduction of Uniswap v4 and Unichain, we are already witnessing a key transformation in Uniswap, evolving from a protocol to a full-fledged developer platform. This shift has major implications for how we, as a DAO, steward Uniswap’s growth. Over the past year, the UF has demonstrated a deep and forward-thinking understanding of this transformation, proactively positioning Uniswap for long-term success. With the official launch of both Uniswap v4 and Unichain, the need to pursue multiple goals simultaneously—protocol growth, developer adoption, and ecosystem expansion—has never been clearer (or more challenging). The vision outlined for 2025 and 2026 aligns with this shift, and we believe it is a necessary and strategic step in Uniswap’s continued evolution.
We acknowledge that this funding proposal is a significant ask. The UF currently represents the largest expense for the DAO treasury, and this request further expands the DAO’s investment in the Foundation. We believe it is important to carefully evaluate the trade-offs of such an investment in the context of Uniswap’s long-term strategy.
Uniswap has one of the largest treasuries in the industry. At karpatkey, we strongly advocate for long-term sustainability and encourage our partners to leverage their resources with that perspective in mind. However, our primary goal remains scaling DeFi. While we agree that treasury mobilisation would be beneficial for the Uniswap DAO, we also believe it should be approached in tandem with growth. The Mobilizing a DAO’s Treasury report identified two north stars for the DAO: growth and sustainability. In our view, mobilising the treasury is an effective way to achieve sustainability, which includes supporting UF funding in the long term.
A key to achieving our other north star—growth—is identifying valuable contributors, fostering innovation, and encouraging high-quality contributions. We believe the Uniswap Foundation exemplifies this role. For this reason, we extend our support for their continued work and are in favour of funding them for the longer term.