Binance immediately lists Uniswap’s new token as excitement mounts

Unfazed by the controversy over its Sushiswap listing, Binance announced support for Uniswap’s new UNI token around 90 minutes after the DeFi platform's governance token went live on Ethereum.

Over the next four years, one billion UNI tokens will be distributed, with 15% being immediately available for historic users of the platform to claim today. In total, 60% will go to community members, while the remaining 40% going to team members, investors, and advisors with a vesting period of up to 4 years. After four years, the token will settle at an inflation rate of 2% annually.

The official announcement said UNI would ensure Uniswap is community-led and self-sustainable:

“The introduction of UNI (ERC-20) serves this purpose, enabling shared community ownership and a vibrant, diverse, and dedicated governance system, which will actively guide the protocol towards the future.”

Liquidity mining programs will go live from September 18 until November 17 targeting the ETH/USDT, ETH/USDC, ETH/DAI, and ETH/WBTC on the decentralized exchange. Five million UNI will be allocated per pool proportional liquidity, equating to roughly 83,333.33 new UNI entering each pool day.

While governance over the project is already live, Uniswap’s treasury cannot be mobilized until October 17. After 30 days, governance will reach its vested cliff — allowing token holders to vote on the allocation of UNI reserves toward “strategic partnerships, governance initiatives, [and] additional liquidity mining pools.” Control over the protocol’s fee switch is also subject to a 180-day delay.

The Uniswap team have pledged they will “continue to have no involvement in V2 protocol development, [and] auditing,” and “will not participate directly in governance for the foreseeable future.” 

Binance was quick to jump on the new token, stating it will open trading in UNI/BTC, UNI/BNB, UNI/BUSD and UNI/USDT trading pairs on September 17 at 3AM UTC.

The leading cryptocurrency exchange came under sustained criticism recently for listing SUSHI just days after it was announced. SUSHI is the token of a cloned Uniswap project run by an anonymous founder who made off with $14M before returning it. Binance has previously made much of its comprehensive listing process, but that appears to have been overtaken by its desire to keep up with events in the fast moving DeFi space.

Deposits are already open for UNI, however Binance cautioned:

“UNI is a new token that poses higher than normal risk, and as such will likely be subject to high price volatility. Please ensure that you exercise sufficient risk management, that you have done your own research in regards to UNI’s fundamentals and fully understand the project before opting to trade.”