A group of seven Uniswap DAO delegates, who participate in voting more than 80% of the time but have limited voting influence, have moved closer to potentially receiving an increase in their voting power following a temperature check vote conducted on Wednesday.
The proposed initiative aims to distribute 10 million Uniswap tokens, valued at approximately $60 million at current market prices, among "underrepresented" DAO delegates who possess less than 2.5 million Uniswap tokens. Among the most favored delegates in the temperature check vote were a DAO affiliated with Georgia Tech's blockchain club and the trading firm Wintermute.
Before these delegates could receive Uniswap (UNI) tokens from the DAO's treasury, the proposal must undergo an on-chain vote. It's important to note that the UNI tokens wouldn't be usable funds for the delegates to spend or trade; instead, they would enhance their portion of voting power in future governance decisions.
Like many other DAOs, Uniswap's DAO allows token holders to either vote directly or delegate their voting authority to another wallet address. The proposal defines "underrepresented" as delegates with fewer than 2.5 million delegated votes, and one of the larger delegates, Variant Fund general partner Jesse Walden, holds approximately 8 million tokens.
StableLab, the governance service provider, has authored a delegation proposal that, if approved, would also grant governance tokens to StableLab. This week, StableLab successfully proposed and implemented a delegation incentive program at Rari DAO.
Doo Wan Nam, the Chief Operating Officer of StableLab, emphasized the importance of this experiment in recognizing active delegates to enhance accountability. Delegates who fail to maintain an 80% participation rate would risk losing the additional votes they receive.
Wan Nam acknowledged the challenge of subjectively assessing whether an active voter is a responsible one. It raises questions about whether delegates are voting thoughtfully or merely casting votes without in-depth research on the proposals.
This development comes at a time when Uniswap's voting delegation has been gradually consolidating. According to a Dune Analytics dashboard, in 2023, the number of votes cast per governance proposal has remained relatively steady, while the number of participating voters has generally decreased.
