The Uniswap Foundation team receives high salaries, while the protocol and token price show a declining trend

Author: Chloe, ChainCatcher

The Uniswap Foundation (UF) has recently sparked heated discussions in the DeFi community due to high executive compensation. According to @ImperiumPaper, which detailed a comparison of UF's financial data with that of the Optimism Foundation's Optimism Grants Council, UF's fund utilization efficiency is low.

This controversy has not only led UNI holders to question the value provided by the foundation but has also prompted a response from Pepo, a major contributor to Uniswap DAO, who previously left due to dissatisfaction with UF's governance.

The Salary Cost of Three Executives at Uniswap Foundation Equals the Entire Optimism Team

According to the Uniswap Foundation's 2024 financial report, the foundation disbursed approximately $9.99 million in grants, but total employee compensation reached as high as $4.79 million, with senior executive compensation accounting for $3.87 million. Adding other expenses of about $2.8 million, UF's total expenditure amounts to approximately $12.8 million. This means employee compensation makes up nearly 37.5% of total expenditures, while executive compensation alone accounts for 22% of the total.

In contrast, the Optimism Grants Council had a total grant budget of about $63.5 million during the same period, with internal personnel compensation of only about $2.14 million. If we conservatively add an estimated KYC cost of $500,000, the total comes to $2.6 million.

ImperiumPaper emphasized: "The cost of UF's three executives is equivalent to the entire Optimism team, yet UF only disbursed 20% of the funds that Optimism did." They called on UNI holders to demand an explanation from the UF board regarding the value it provides. Supporters argue that hiring senior executives at this scale in a Web2 company would naturally cost more, while opponents contend that foundation salaries should not be compared to the private sector, especially when mediocre individuals are receiving premium salaries, akin to many boondoggles in the crypto industry.

Looking back, UNI has experienced significant price fluctuations over the past two years. After closing at around $7.35 at the end of 2023, it surged to over $18 in December 2024, only to drop below $10 in February 2025 due to a broad correction in the crypto market, continuing to decline through mid-year.

Recently, benefiting from the Unification governance proposal, UNI saw a single-day surge of about 19% on December 20. Amidst a period of stagnation in mainstream coins, it quickly climbed from a consolidation range of $5.50 to $6.27, before falling back to $5.76 at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, Uniswap's TVL has declined by 60% from its peak of nearly $10 billion in 2021-2022 to about $4 billion, indicating that while both token prices and protocol lock-up amounts have shrunk by more than half, executive compensation expenditures account for nearly a quarter of total expenses, raising community concerns about whether employee salaries genuinely contribute to protocol growth. As of now, UF has not formally responded to the latest criticisms.

Additionally, Pepo (@0xPEPO), a former Uniswap DAO contributor who left this year due to dissatisfaction with UF governance, also shared the controversial post, expressing hope that his friends could break free from "salary hell," indirectly mocking a certain executive's annual salary of $700,000.

Uniswap Operates Based on a Complex Byzantine Structure

Pepo resigned from his position as a DAO representative in May this year, holding 455,000 UNI tokens at the time, making him one of the top 20 DAO representatives. According to CoinDesk, Pepo's departure stemmed from dissatisfaction with UF, accusing it of prioritizing its own interests and Uniswap Labs over the DAO as a whole after receiving $165 million in funding, and lacking responsiveness and transparency in feedback.

At that time, Pepo stated in an X post: "The foundation's actions seem to prioritize isolating others rather than collaborating, and this is harming Uniswap." This reflects deep-seated issues in Uniswap governance, including large representatives making decisions privately, insufficient influence of DAO members, and questions regarding the protocol's level of decentralization.

Pepo's departure is seen as a symbol of reduced DAO participation. GFX Labs' PaperImperium stated, "For any DAO, when a contributor feels that the only way to make an impact is to resign, it is a loss."

Like most DeFi protocols, Uniswap operates on an extremely complex "Byzantine" structure: the for-profit company Uniswap Labs is responsible for technical development, while the non-profit Uniswap Foundation (UF) promotes ecosystem growth, and governance and resource allocation are controlled by a DAO composed of UNI holders.

It is precisely because of this multi-party governance structure that conflicts of interest are seeded. In March of this year, the DAO authorized the disbursement of $165 million to the foundation, intending to grant it the autonomy to drive development, but it inadvertently led to blurred lines of responsibility and authority.

As contributors like Pepo have expressed concern, when the foundation's actions are questioned as prioritizing its interests over the overall DAO, how to balance the interests of token holders with other stakeholders has become a core issue that Uniswap, and indeed all DeFi protocols, must confront.