「Is Uniswap Controlled by a16z?」: Crypto Community Concerned About VCs' Governance Moves

Decrypt

2023-02-07 14:38

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原文标题：《「Uniswap 由 a16z 控制？」：加密社区因 VC 们的治理举措而担忧》

原文来源：Decrypt

Heimi, Bai Ze Research Institute

"Cryptocurrencies are not only an experiment in monetary theory but also a radical experiment in decentralized governance." Ariel Deschapell, an early bitcoin developer, wrote this in a blog post in 2016 after The DAO was attacked and hackers made off with 3.6 million ETH overnight, leading to a hard fork in Ethereum.

Now, seven years later, with The Web3 wave sweeping the Internet, DAO has emerged from the aftermath of The DAO incident and proved to be a better form of organization than traditional companies and enterprises.

Recently, the "battle of proposals" over Uniwap exploded the crypto community, and this time, it was another day of crypto governance experiments.

This time, a new proposal on Uniswap to deploy transaction protocols on the BNB chain sits at the center of the DAO, at the center of the crypto community. Many have expressed concern about the emergence of influential "money whales" in Uniswap governance.

这头巨鲸正是知名风险投资基金 Andreessen Horowitz（a16z），它已经将持有的 1500 万个 UNI Token 用来投票反对当前的提案。UNI 是 Uniswap 的原生Token，兼作治理 Token ，允许持币用户对关键提案进行投票。

a16z 引发其「在 Uniswap 全 Token 投票反对」的关键争论似乎与 Uniswap 是否应该在 BNB 链上部署无关，而是在于背后所使用的跨链桥。

The proposal suggests using Wormhole as a cross-link bridge between Ethereum and BNB chains, while a16z has said it prefers LayerZero, a cross-link protocol backed by its own behind-the-scenes investment. a16z does not consider Wormhole to be the most secure or decentralized cross-chain bridge available, and Uniswap DAO will not be able to independently control the cross-chain bridge if Wormhole is chosen as the provider.

Eddie Lazzarin, a partner at a16z, has previously hinted that the company is fully behind LayerZero in its portfolio as Uniswap's cross-chain bridge:

「为了完全明确起见，如果技术上允许的话，我们在 a16z 会将 1500 万个 Token 投给 LayerZero。」

Wormhole, which is backed by another venture capital firm called Jump Crypto, has yet to vote on the proposal.

这或许突出了 DAO 目前面临的一个关键问题。a16z 最近的举动凸显出，尽管区块链的精神是去中心化并摆脱集中治理，但 DAO 仍然由最有钱的人控制。你拥有的 Token 越多，则投票权就越大。这使得 DAO 治理 Token 的效用越来越没有意义。

This is not the first time a16z has been accused of being a centralising force in DeFi - although it has sought to decentralise its influence in the governance of DeFi agreements by delegating voting rights to various custodian companies.

The Twitter crypto community appears to be divided over the issue

Still, the a16z vote has sparked debate in the Twitter crypto community.

Binance CEO CZ asked his 8.1 million followers: "Is Uniswap controlled by a16z?"

DeFi researcher Chris Blec said "anti-competitive Cartel Behaviour in DeFi is real" in response to the massive a16z vote. In another tweet, he quipped: "a16z owns the Uniswap protocol and it will determine what future versions of Uniswap look like."

Others, however, took a very different stance, with Roman Semenov, co-founder of Tornado Cash, saying he "didn't see any problems" and that "this is how the free market works."

最神秘的 DeFi 投资人 DegenSpartan 表示，风投公司的大量投票「不是漏洞，而是一个功能」，并补充说，「如果你想要更多的投票权，那就去买更多的 Token 。」

The follow-up to the Uniswap poll

The vote on the proposal is far from over, ending on February 10th, but the "governance fight" has changed quite a bit today.

虽然 1500 万个 UNI Token 是一笔巨款，但它约占 UNI 当前市场流通量的 2% 和总供应量的 1.5%。

Thus, the extent of a16z's control over Uniswap may be overstated, as its 15 million "no" votes only initially accounted for the majority of all votes cast.

In the last 24 hours, votes from a number of other "coin whales" -- such as 5.76 million from Compound Labs' Robert Lesher, 4.92 million from GFX Labs, And 3.5 million votes from the Michigan blockchain group -- which has all but wiped out a16z, which currently has about 62 percent in favor and about 38 percent against.