a16z Impact on Uniswap Voting

A16z, one of the major investment companies in the cryptocurrency space, voted against in the vote on the integration of the largest decentralized exchange Uniswap with BNB Chain. The company used all 15 million UNIs under its control for this. In the voting that will end on February 11, the current situation is 36% “yes” versus 64% “no.” The table before a16z, on the other hand, was 99% “yes”.

The voting in question was initiated by 0xPlasma Labs on Friday, February 3rd. If the proposal is accepted, 0xPlasma Labs will be authorized to integrate the Uniswap V3 protocol into BNB Chain on behalf of the community. A pre-approval process was carried out for this integration recently, where 19.72% of “no” (4.9 million UNI) votes versus 80.28% of “yes” (20 million UNI) votes. However, one more final governance vote was needed. At this point, the proposal ran into a big obstacle: a16z.

It is stated that the reason for a16z’s vote against is that the integration will be done using the Wormhole bridge. Because a16z supports LayerZero, a rival solution to Wormhole, of which it is an investor. This move by a16z has inflamed the decentralization debate. The massive impact of voting power provided by a company with a $100 million token on the community’s decision-making has raised questions. On the other hand, it was remarkable that a16z opposed a Uniswap proposal for the first time. It is also noted that it is the first time that the company has used its full voting power of 15 million UNI.

The Uniswap proposal put two big venture capital firms against each other, according to The Block. a16z supports the LayerZero bridge, while Jump invests in Wormhole. Jump hasn’t voted yet. Wormhole was hacked last year and as a result of this event, 325 million dollars of ETH was stolen. The hacker, who is still busy laundering the funds he stole, recently made a $157 million ETH transaction.