UNI Token: The Breakthrough and Concerns of DeFi Governance Token
In 2025, UNI, as the governance token of Uniswap, stands at the crossroads of "monetizing governance power" and "ecosystem expansion." Its value logic has evolved from mere voting rights to new dimensions such as protocol revenue distribution and cross-chain ecosystem building, yet inflationary pressures and regulatory uncertainties remain a looming threat.
1. Technological Iteration: V4 Architecture Activates Ecological Vitality
Uniswap V4 reduces the cost of establishing liquidity pools by 99% through the "hooks" mechanism, supporting innovations such as on-chain limit orders and dynamic fees, maintaining a stable daily trading volume among the top DEXs. After cross-chain deployment to Arbitrum, Solana, and other chains, trading volume increased by 40%, attracting a large number of projects to migrate, directly expanding UNI's application scenarios and governance needs.
2. Evolution of Governance Power: From "Symbolic" to "Income Certificate"
The community, through the "Protocol Fee Switch" proposal, allows UNI holders to vote on the fee distribution ratio. After a certain liquidity pool raised the fee from 0.05% to 0.1%, the demand for UNI staking surged by 30%, driving a price rebound. However, the risk of centralized governance emerged—$110 million UNI was entrusted to 12 representatives, sparking controversy over "minority control."
3. Inflation and Regulation: Balancing Act Under Dual Pressure
The total supply of UNI is 1 billion tokens, with an annual inflation rate of 2%. If protocol revenue growth is lower than inflation, the price will be under pressure. In the first quarter of 2025, due to market volatility leading to a decline in trading volume, the UNI inflation rate exceeded the revenue growth rate, causing the price to drop to $12 at one point. At the same time, although the SEC has not classified it as a security, if fee distribution is seen as "investment returns," it could trigger regulatory scrutiny.
4. Future Outlook: Ecosystem Expansion is Key
The potential of UNI depends on whether Uniswap can evolve from a "DEX leader" to a "DeFi infrastructure." If the cross-chain and modular design of V4 continues to attract developers, and if the explosion of the RWA tokenization market leads to a surge in fees, UNI is expected to exceed its current market value and move towards a $10 billion token. However, this process requires balancing inflation and value support, walking a tightrope between regulation and innovation, and finding consensus between community governance efficiency and decentralization principles. The future of UNI is an experiment in the DeFi field concerning "power and value," with the answers to be jointly written by the market and regulation.