Token Unions 🦄
Workers organise unions to push back against owners. Holders of tokens will do the same.
Unionisation is the act or process of organizing workers to become members of a trade union. Workers get tired of managers and rise up. I believe the same thing is happening between token holders and creators.
If you bought almost any token in the last 3 years and did not sell it, you lost a LOT of money. People are angry about that—and they should be.
The vast majority of token creators dump their digital apparitions on regular investors. It is a terrible state of affairs and our industry deserves all the stringent regulatory oversight it is about to get. We failed the people, and the people are angry.
Uniswap VCs vs. Uniswap Community
Over the last week, there has been quite a bit of controversy around the voting concentration that has accrued to the holders of the UNI token.
Here is are some top tweets on the topic:
There is quite a bit of detailed reporting on the distribution of the UNI token and how it controls the fee switch so that Uniswap can generate revenue:
Instead of liquidity rewards being diverted to UNI users, as many hoped would happen, the plan is to direct the fees to the treasury. Yes, the same treasury that Uniswap founders and VC investors have proven again and again that they control with their token majorities. They want to grow it even more.
Here is the crux of the issue: Hayden was initially funded be Ethereans like me and the Ethereum Foundation. He turned his back on us and hired the deepest stack of entrenched fin-tech people in the world:
How hard would it be to create a Union on Ethereum?
Turns out it takes a few minutes. Here is what I did this morning:
This is Guild, a tool for creating a community around a token. I am going to start sending my friends who own UNI to this link:
https://guild.xyz/uniswap-union
Then, when we have an appropriate delegate to represent us, we are going to delegate all of our UNI tokens’ voting power to them:
This is how we organise: a chat room, delegation system & shared bank account took me a few minutes to establish on Ethereum. That would take months in the real world!
Now, we begin to organise our delegation to the senate of the Ethereum Community. Policies will be announced and people will rally around them.
Why does any of this matter?
If protocols are more important than companies, token unions will be incredibly important for resolving real disputes between creators, investors and holders. We have to start exploring the limits of this now.
We are entering exciting territory as a community. Ethereum is big enough to shake up companies and wake up governments. We must show that we can form strong governance processes that have real separation of powers.
I am searching for protocol politicians to represent UNI holders in the pantheon of the people: The Uniswap Governance Forum
If you are interested, please reply to this email or join us at:
Hello son