Uniswap Revenue is Soaring After v4 Fee Switch

gm, Defiers!

These were the biggest stories in DeFi and crypto today:

• Uniswap protocol revenue nearly triples after the v4 fee switch
• ENS drops the plan to move its treasury wallet to a foundation
• Aave moves to retire 50 assets and wind down six chains
• Ready's card program dies with its issuer Kulipa

Uniswap turned the fee switch on for its newest pools this week. The money showed up. So did the fight.

Protocol revenue has nearly tripled since the July 27 activation, with about $325,000 flowing toward UNI burns in the past 24 hours against a run rate near $114,000 a day earlier in July, according to DefiLlama. UNI rallied 12% over 24 hours to about $4.40. Robinhood Chain alone supplied $170,353 of that daily total, more than half of it, with Ethereum mainnet adding $81,866.

The argument is about who pays for it. Alexander Cutler, co-founder of Aerodrome developer Dromos Labs, told anyone holding locked v2 or v3 liquidity their fee share had been cut by up to 25%. Uniswap co-founder Hayden Adams called that math "made-up": in v4 the protocol fee lands on the trader, on top of the LP's full rate. They’re both describing real mechanics in different versions of the protocol, and Uniswap's own documentation backs each of them. Three days in, traders are still paying and roughly $3 billion in total value locked has stayed put.

Read more below!

DEFI

Uniswap Protocol Revenue Nearly Triples After v4 Fee Switch as UNI Tops $4

Uniswap's protocol revenue has nearly tripled since the fee switch reached v4 pools on July 27, with about $325,000 flowing toward UNI burns in the past 24 hours against roughly $114,000 a day earlier in the month, according to DefiLlama. Proposal 100 passed with 46.6 million UNI in favor and 1.27 million against, extending fees to v4 pools across seven chains. Robinhood Chain supplied $170,353 of the past day's revenue. The UNI dead address now holds 107.8 million tokens.

Uniswap Protocol Revenue Nearly Triples After v4 Fee Switch as UNI Tops $4Uniswap's fee switch reached the protocol's newest pools this week, and the first revenue arrived alongside a public brawl over who is paying for it.thedefiant.io

Why this matters: Uniswap spent five years with a fee-less token. Three days of v4 revenue now decide whether liquidity providers stay once the burn math stops flattering the top line.

NFTS AND WEB3

ENS Scales Back Plan to Move DAO Treasury Control to New Foundation

ENS Labs COO Katherine Wu posted an executable draft Thursday that keeps the DAO's operational wallet and its 54.6 million ENS under tokenholder control, dropping the broader handover floated in a June 19 temp check. Only the roughly $65 million Endowment Safe moves to Foundation administration, and every Endowment transaction now passes through a timelock the Security Council can cancel. The lone token transfer is 1 million ENS for Foundation employee pay, on multi-year vesting.

Why this matters: Delegates called the June version treasury capture by ENS Labs. The draft gives ground on two of three fronts, and the Security Council's cancellation right is the price of the third.

DEFI

Aave Moves to Retire 50 Low-Adoption Assets, Wind Down Six Chains

Risk provider LlamaRisk proposed Wednesday that Aave deprecate 50 low-adoption reserves and wind down its deployments on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos, touching $98.1 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in debt, under 1% of the protocol's $14.3 billion in deposits. Deposits on Sonic fell 74% over six months to $7.6 million, and Soneium's dropped 95% to $173,000. Each of the six chains generates under $5,000 a quarter in protocol revenue.

Why this matters: Founder Stani Kulechov says the cleanup carries no view on any L1 or L2. Six chains earning under $5,000 a quarter make that argument for him.

CEFI

Ready Shuts Card Program After Issuer Kulipa's Sudden Wind-Down

Ready, the self-custodial wallet formerly known as Argent, shut its card program on Wednesday after issuer Kulipa wound down with no notice. Solflare's card went the same way a day earlier, with co-founder Vidor Bojthe citing solvency problems at the Paris-based startup, which built card programs for roughly 20 wallets and fintechs. Kulipa raised a $6.2 million seed round on April 1, four months before it collapsed. Both wallets pull funds at the swipe, so no customer balances sat with the issuer.

Why this matters: Around 20 card programs rented the same issuer. Self-custody kept user balances safe and still left every one of those cards dead by Wednesday morning.

REGULATION

US Sanctions Iranian Marine Insurers Taking Bitcoin for Strait of Hormuz Passage

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority and the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company on Wednesday, saying the two firms force commercial vessels to buy mandatory insurance against seizures Iran itself creates. HormuzSafe, developed by Iran's Ministry of Economy, takes Bitcoin and other digital assets to sidestep sanctions and raises the money on behalf of the IRGC. OFAC named eight shipping companies and eight tankers in the same action.

Why this matters: Treasury has sanctioned more than 100 vessels tied to Iran's shadow fleet since January. The crypto rail is what makes an extortion toll collectible once the banks are closed.

Other Stories Worth Your Time

Banco Santander Discloses Spot Bitcoin ETF Stake in 13F Filing — the Spanish group's 13F disclosed 129,615 IBIT shares worth $4.31 million and a first Ether ETF position, together about 0.05% of its $16.08 billion US equity book.

Lightning Labs Launches Site for L402 Bitcoin Agent Payments — the company gave L402, its Lightning HTTP 402 standard for machine-to-machine agent payments, a dedicated site; the protocol already runs inside Lightning Loop through Aperture.

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