TL;DR
- Fee Expansion: Uniswap’s new vote aims to activate protocol fees across eight L2 networks, potentially adding $27M in annualized revenue for UNI holders.
- Market Reaction: The token surged about 15% in 24 hours to a one‑week high as traders responded to the governance proposal and renewed expectations for expanded fee sharing.
- Economic Shift: The protocol has already generated $34M in annualized revenue for UNI burns and returned to profitability in Q1 2026, positioning the fee switch expansion as a major step toward a broader cross‑chain revenue model.
Uniswap’s latest governance cycle is steering the protocol toward a broader revenue‑sharing model that could deliver up to $27M in added value to UNI holders. The upcoming vote, scheduled from February 27 to March 1, focuses on expanding fee activation across multiple chains, reinforcing a narrative that has already helped lift UNI to one of its strongest price breakouts of 2026.
Expanding the Fee Switch Across Eight L2 Networks
The proposal centers on enabling protocol fees on eight additional layer‑2 networks, including Base, OP Mainnet, Arbitrum, Celo, Soneium, Worldchain, X Layer, and Zora. This expansion would extend Uniswap’s fee switch beyond its initial Ethereum‑based rollout, capturing revenue from a wider set of v3 pools. A new v3OpenFeeAdapter would automate fee activation by tier, replacing the older pool‑by‑pool model and ensuring all new pools default to fee capture.
If approved, the change could add an estimated $27M in annualized revenue on top of the roughly $34M already being generated for token buybacks and burns. Uniswap has burned more than $5.5M worth of UNI since reintroducing fees late last year, and the expanded system would route L2 fees to each chain’s TokenJar before bridging them back to mainnet for conversion and burning. This mechanism strengthens the link between trading activity and the token’s market value.
Market Reaction and Token Performance
The governance momentum has already fueled a sharp market response. The token climbed roughly 15% in 24 hours, outperforming Bitcoin’s 4.7% gain and Ether’s 8.5% rise. The token recently traded at $4.04, marking a one‑week high after months of weakness. Traders expect the rally to extend toward $4.80, with some anticipating a potential recovery to $6 if liquidity continues to rotate back into Uniswap’s ecosystem.
The protocol generated more than $938M in annualized fees and returned to profitability in Q1 2026, recording $2.75M in net profit and $3.12M in gross profit. The proposed expansion would cement its shift into a cross‑chain revenue engine, though long‑term effects will depend on whether higher fee capture affects competitiveness on fee‑sensitive L2 markets.
