Uniswap Foundation Proposes Changes to Crypto DEX's Governance, Voting Processes

The Uniswap Foundation is putting to vote a series of governance changes that it said would streamline voting in the decentralized autonomous organization that manages Uniswap, one of the most popular venues for decentralized crypto trading.

Uniswap community members will get to vote on Dec. 14 on a restructuring package that will "improve efficiency and efficacy" for the DAO, according to a forum post by Devin Walsh, the foundation's executive director.

The biggest changes would see Uniswap governance reduce its requirement for off-chain "snapshot votes" that precede on-chain votes. It would drastically raise the barrier for clearing preliminary votes, a move that will "prevent lower quality proposals" from breaking through, according to Walsh's blog.

Final governance votes (the on-chain votes that approve or deny proposals) will remain the same.

"One of the Uniswap Foundation's mandates is to enable better decision-making by the DAO, and a pain point has been the community governance process," Walsh told CoinDesk. "We are pleased that this proposal has received so much feedback from delegates, and are excited for these changes to both increase the process's effectiveness as well as reduce its operational overhead."

Uniswap community members have been active in their efforts to streamline governance and limit friction within the protocol. In August, they voted to create the Uniswap Foundation, in an effort to bolster the community around its treasury management.

UPDATE (Dec. 9, 2022, 18:01 UTC): Adds quotes from Devin Walsh.