[Temp Check] - Return 12.5M Delegated Tokens to the Governance Timelock

Governance-Meta
1

With DUNI unlocking greater governance participation from UNI token holders, this proposal undelegates 12.5M UNI currently deployed via the Franchiser, returning the tokens to the Governance Timelock.

Snapshot: https://snapshot.box/#/s:uniswapgovernance.eth/proposal/0xd41b2db93c0348e9061bf786dfcb610d8f35e8447f2e90b37b8f30a9b1a3091e

Background & Motivation

These UNI were delegated from the treasury in 2022 and 2023 – 2.5M to the Uniswap Foundation and 10M to a group of active delegates – during periods of low governance participation. The delegations were intended to bootstrap an active delegate base when quorum was at risk and the number of delegates that could meet the proposal threshold was small.

Today, Uniswap’s governance environment looks very different. UNI holders have been actively delegating voting power, and since DUNI was established, passed proposals have averaged roughly 75 million votes in turnout, exceeding quorum by approximately 88%. There are now over 50 delegates with greater than 1M UNI of voting power.

Undelegating these tokens also resolves a potential incentive misalignment caused by the Franchiser mechanism itself. These delegates were selected by the community for their active participation in governance, but the Franchiser was not designed to ensure structural alignment between voting power and economic exposure. The potential for this misalignment should not persist indefinitely when the original reason for implementing it is no longer a concern.

Specification

This proposal calls recallMany on the FranchiserFactory contract to retrieve all UNI currently delegated through the Franchiser system.

Franchiser delegations to undelegate:

Address Balance (UNI) Delegate
0x3d4ACFD2C8b0641fb8db762179eE5A8dB385E573 2,500,000 Uniswap Foundation
0xfB6b912cf7082031822F52E7d7EF59280f97A257 2,499,858 Anode (fka StableLab)
0x8D2642Ec9d19A9333c8593ab7dE1Cc3Be44D2DBC 2,250,000 Axia Network (fka 404DAO)
0x61BeD6a58c4dC592f1dC32f9eC0F67E49208405c 2,250,000 PGov
0xe38e5dD6E11ba18450Cbdd518e8A7Eb5F4A17a11 1,900,000 Wintermute
0xD57A44e75E863907fC1957B49B35893BF7874809 493,972 Keyrock
0xA5bB68AC2d70B21F5b7d051542f4799954fB6087 452,626 KPK (fka Karpatkey)
0xfe23b0DDCC9c78B21092e54b846a302C961EFab2 153,544 Atiselsts.eth

Onchain Proposal Spec

The proposal consists of a single transaction:

target:    0xf754A7E347F81cFdc70AF9FbCCe9Df3D826360FA
function:  recallMany(address[],address[])
delegatees:
  0xE93D59CC0bcECFD4ac204827eF67c5266079E2b5  // Axia
  0xB933AEe47C438f22DE0747D57fc239FE37878Dd1  // Wintermute
  0x3FB19771947072629C8EEE7995a2eF23B72d4C8A  // PGov
  0xECC2a9240268BC7a26386ecB49E1Befca2706AC9  // Anode
  0x1855f41B8A86e701E33199DE7C25d3e3830698ba  // Keyrock
  0x8787FC2De4De95c53e5E3a4e5459247D9773ea52  // KPK
  0xAac35d953Ef23aE2E61a866ab93deA6eC0050bcD  // atiselsts
  0xA37131410A76791f4A0210e91EDD554d85aFb4d4  // UF
tos:
  0x1a9C8182C09F50C8318d769245beA52c32BE35BC repeated 8 times

Next Steps

  • RFC posted: April 24, 2026
  • Snapshot vote: After April 31, 2026
  • Onchain vote: After a succcessful Snapshot

Additional Resources

3 Likes
2

Thanks for the proposal, @eek637.

We dug into the executable spec and want to flag what looks like a target and signature mismatch worth reviewing before Snapshot.

The address listed in the spec, 0x3d4ACFD2C8b0641fb8db762179eE5A8dB385E573, appears to be the Uniswap Foundation’s Franchiser clone rather than the FranchiserFactory. Its owner() is 0xf754A7E347F81cFdc70AF9FbCCe9Df3D826360FA, which is the contract Etherscan verifies as FranchiserFactory. The function shape also looks off: the factory’s recallMany takes two equal-length arrays, delegatees and tos.

If we’ve read this right, the corrected call would be:

target:    0xf754A7E347F81cFdc70AF9FbCCe9Df3D826360FA
function:  recallMany(address[],address[])
delegatees:
  0xE93D59CC0bcECFD4ac204827eF67c5266079E2b5  // Axia
  0xB933AEe47C438f22DE0747D57fc239FE37878Dd1  // Wintermute
  0x3FB19771947072629C8EEE7995a2eF23B72d4C8A  // PGov
  0xECC2a9240268BC7a26386ecB49E1Befca2706AC9  // Anode
  0x1855f41B8A86e701E33199DE7C25d3e3830698ba  // Keyrock
  0x8787FC2De4De95c53e5E3a4e5459247D9773ea52  // KPK
  0xAac35d953Ef23aE2E61a866ab93deA6eC0050bcD  // atiselsts
  0xA37131410A76791f4A0210e91EDD554d85aFb4d4  // UF
tos:
  0x1a9C8182C09F50C8318d769245beA52c32BE35BC repeated 8 times

Happy to be corrected if we’ve misread the layout; sharing in case it saves a vote cycle.

On the substance, we lean toward supporting the recall. The 2022 and 2023 batches solved a specific bootstrap problem: thin delegate participation and fragile quorum at a moment when neither could be assumed. DUNI changed that environment, and treasury-funded voting power held by selected service providers is harder to justify once organic participation is broader and stake can express itself directly. The recall is the cleaner governance posture in principle.

What stays open is quorum variance, not the legitimacy of the recall itself. The RFC notes that post-DUNI turnout averages around 75M votes, roughly 88% above the 40M quorum, which is true. But that average hides per-proposal variance: proposal 92 (Strategic Renewal of Gnosis, Linea, and Mantle Deployments, December 2025) would have missed the 40M affirmative quorum without about 10.9M of Franchiser delegated VP voting FOR. Proposals 94 and 95 still pass without it, so this isn’t a general veto. But one of three substantive post-DUNI votes was a real close call.

That alone shouldn’t stop the recall, but it does need a mitigation answer before Snapshot. After the recall, how does governance plan to handle the next close-call proposal against the 40M affirmative quorum?

2 Likes
3

Thanks for the sharp eyes here @Tane agreed on both - OP updated.

4

@eek637 As one of the delegates who received treasury delegation, I understand and respect the motivation behind this proposal to return the 12.5M UNI to the Governance Timelock.

Treasury delegations served an important purpose when governance participation was low and quorum was often at risk. Now, with DUNI driving significantly higher turnout and a larger distribution of voting power, it makes sense to move toward a more organic delegation structure.

Even after the recall, I plan to continue contributing actively to Uniswap governance and will focus on growing my delegation organically. I’ve been — and will keep — engaging constructively on proposals, research, and discussions, adding value wherever I can by leveraging the high-context I’ve built over the past years contributing to Uniswap governance. My commitment stems from a genuine belief in the long-term success of the protocol and governance, not from any temporary bootstrapped voting power.

Thank you for the opportunities that the treasury delegation provided. Looking forward to engaging more in this next phase of UNI governance!

1 Like
5

I’d support this in principle, however after having closer look at the proposal, I’m unconvinced by the reasoning.

UNI holders have been actively delegating voting power, and since DUNI was established, passed proposals have averaged roughly 75 million votes in turnout, exceeding quorum by approximately 88%.

This is factually true however the problem is that there’s a clear survivorship bias. The proposals that don’t have clear push from the leadership simply aren’t reaching the voting stage. I haven’t seen any evidence that the DAO after UNIfication still have enough voting activity to pass proposals that are initiated by 3rd parties or bottom-up proposals from DAO delegates.

However, I voted Abstain due to Conflict of Interest, following the Uniswap Principles, as most of my remaining UNI delegation comes from this source.

2 Likes
6

We fully agree with this assessment. It is not entirely accurate to say that the quorum issue has been resolved. Following UNIfication and DUNI, the only proposals that have successfully reached quorum are those promoted by Labs or the Foundation. This suggests that the necessary conditions have been created for certain investors to participate without fear of legal consequences; however, this increase in quorum has not extended to proposals driven by delegates or third parties.

In fact, none of those proposals have reached quorum, and many have not even made it to a vote for that very reason. A quick look at the Uniswap voting portal, where only two proposals have been approved so far this year, clearly indicates that the DAO is still facing a significant participation problem. From the Uniswap core team’s perspective, this is likely not a problem, since votes seem assured when they’re needed, but from the standpoint of healthy governance, the situation is critical. For that reason, we have abstained on this proposal.

7

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

We voted FOR.

We think this makes sense given how Uniswap governance has evolved. The original delegations played an important role when participation was low and quorum was a real concern, but that is no longer the case today. Governance looks much healthier now, with broader participation and a more distributed set of active delegates.

We have generally been cautious about treasury-funded delegation mechanisms like the Franchiser. They can be useful as a temporary solution, but they should not become a permanent part of the system. If the initial goal has been achieved, it is reasonable to step back and let governance operate more organically.

8

Hi all - planning to post the proposal Friday afternoon. For those interested (@Tane , @Manugotsuka), i’ll be posting via Seatbelt using the code in this PR: https://github.com/uniswapfoundation/governance-seatbelt/pull/258. If you pull and run locally, seatbelt show the simulation results.

2 Likes
9

Reviewed PR #258. Inverse fundMany simulation with the right recallMany call, Tenderly checks pass. LGTM, see you on-chain Friday.

1 Like