UNI is up about 15% in the past 24 hours, outpacing bitcoin’s 4.7% rise and ether’s 8.5% rise, as investors reacted to a Uniswap governance vote aimed at expanding the protocol’s revenue capture across multiple Layer 2 networks.
If approved, the proposal would expand the so-called fee shift to eight additional chains and replace the current pool-by-pool model with a tier-based v3 system that triggers fees across all liquidity pools by default.
Fee shifting is the mechanism that redirects a portion of the platform’s trading fees to the protocol’s own treasury from liquidity providers. These captured fee revenues are then used for UNI token buybacks, burns and treasury growth, establishing a direct link between the platform’s trading volume and the market value of UNI.
A single governance decision is poised to add $27 million in annualized revenue to Uniswap.
Since the first UNIfication proposal was approved, the protocol fees collected have already enabled over $5.5 million in UNI burns ($34 million annualized). So what kind of impact could expanding this to eight more…? pic.twitter.com/GjEJbJ0S8b
– Entropy Advisors (@EntropyAdvisors) February 25, 2026
Some estimates suggest the change could add roughly $27 million in annualized revenue on top of the roughly $34 million already generated and used to burn UNI, marking one of the most significant changes to Uniswap’s token economy since fees were reintroduced late last year.
The governance proposal, split into two on-chain votes due to transaction limits, would trigger protocol fees on multiple blockchains. It also introduces a new v3OpenFeeAdapter that applies protocol fees uniformly across all liquidity pools based on their fee level, rather than requiring governance to activate pools individually.
The change would make protocol fee capture automatic for all new v3 pools, reducing manual intervention and potentially expanding revenue collection on long-tail trading pairs.
Since the first phase of the fee change launch late last year, Uniswap has already burned over $5.5 million worth of UNI, implying an annualized pace of about $34 million at current levels.
The rally comes as crypto markets broadly recover, with bitcoin up 4% to 5% and ether gaining about 8% over the same period.
Still, the long-term impact will depend on whether increased protocol fee capture impacts Uniswap’s competitiveness for liquidity on Layer 2 networks, where fee-sensitive traders and market makers may migrate to alternative venues.
After years of generating trading volume without significant revenue for token holders, recent quarters show the protocol beginning to retain revenue.
In the first quarter of 2026, Uniswap recorded approximately $3.12 million in gross profits, according to data from DeFi Llama, compared to zero in previous periods.
The change follows the gradual activation of the tariff change at the end of last year, which redirected a portion of commercial tariffs towards UNI Burns.
If passed, the vote would cement Uniswap’s transition to a cross-chain revenue-generating protocol, with UNI burns increasingly tied to aggregate trading activity beyond Ethereum.
