Popular decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap has taken a massive step as it launches on Ethereum scaling solution Optimism mainnet to make the second-largest network faster and cheaper to use.
This “marks the first step in the journey for DeFi applications to rival and surpass traditional web user experiences,” says the team.
This soft launch has an initial throughput of 0.6 TPS with transaction speeds to ramp up over the coming weeks and months as the OΞ infrastructure is tested and optimized at scale.
Amidst this big news, governance drama overshadowed things as DeFi Education Fund received 1 million UNI tokens, worth $20 million, for which the proposal was recently approved.
First time I hear about the “Defi Education Fund” and somehow they got a $10mm grant, sense check;
— Andre Cronje (@AndreCronjeTech) July 13, 2021
Interestingly, half of this grant has already been cashed out for $10 million, and the organization doesn’t even have a website. Also, this has been in complete contrast with earlier proposed allocation over 4-5 years.
In the 24 hours following the sales of these tokens, UNI’s price went down 8%.
“With the help of GenesisTrading, we sold 500k UNI for ~$10.2M USDC to fund the efforts of the Defi Education Fund. In the next 24 hours, we will be sending 500k UNI to Genesis and receiving ~$10.2M USDC in return,” tweeted Defi Education Fund on Tuesday. “Going forward, we will continue to provide updates on major movements of funds,” it added.
The Fund is started by Harvard Law Blockchain & FinTech Initiative (HarvardLawBFI), which first came into view in May.
The Fund is currently hiring a Policy Director to establish a strategy for the fund, engage with policymakers, and develop a transparent reporting process.
While some were also in support, many on the Crypto Twitter (CT) were not.
So the first thing that the DeFi Education Fund teaches people is that @Uniswap ‘s governance model is flawed
— Darren Lau (@Darrenlautf) July 14, 2021
In its proposal, the Fund says it will work towards policy-maker education and grassroots advocacy. Still, many in the community are not supporting this lobbying group, especially the lack of transparency here, and more than that; they suspect foul play in the voting process. One such argument against it read,
“Half the margin of victory came from the proposer itself. Almost the total margin of victory came from the proposer itself and Penn Blockchain, which A16Z sponsors and helped write the WEF report with several of the board members who will now hand out the UNI that left the treasury.”
“Theoretically, yes, DeFi very much needs lobbying. But through this proposal, through an untransparent team, using Uniswap’s funds, through questionable voting tactics? … probably not,” noted another.
It‘s hard to to spend $20m better than on lobbying regulators. Gonna be good for all of Defi in the long run.
— Hasu (@hasufl) July 13, 2021
“It’s definitely an education fund…it teaches UNI stakeholders a lesson in due diligence,” said Tetranode. “UNI decision making is at the mercy of insiders.”
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