What Is the UNI Token? Uniswap's ERC-20 Governance Coin, Explained

A token that sits on a trading screen often looks like one holding with several uses attached. People treat it as a share of the protocol, as the coin you need before you can swap, or as the gas that pays the chain, because the same ticker sits on every one of those screens.

Those uses live on different ledgers and different contracts, because a share would pay you, a swap pass would sit in the wallet before you trade, and gas is whatever the chain charges for a call. Mixing them is how a venue balance gets treated as a vote, or a pool deposit gets treated as a paycheck.

Governance tokens were built for a narrower function: they let holders vote on protocol settings once the coins sit where the governor can see them. They are still tokens you can send and sell, while the vote is the design, and a fee check is a separate claim.

UNI is Uniswap's ERC-20 governance token, and holders vote through DUNI, with no pro-rata claim on protocol revenue. What Uniswap is names the permissionless automated market maker (AMM) that UNI governs. BloFin lists UNI as UNI/USDT spot plus two perpetuals, which are venue products on that same token.

What a UNI balance can do

UNI gives a holder a vote on Uniswap protocol decisions once that UNI sits where governance can see it, and it leaves pool fees, Ethereum gas, and a monthly paycheck as separate claims. Those are four different functions people hang on the same ticker.

Suppose you buy 50 UNI as a first size. You can still open a Uniswap pool and trade a pair that never lists UNI. The 50 coins are vote weight if they sit in a signing wallet and get delegated in time. They are cargo in a pool if you deposit them as liquidity, and a venue line if they sit on BloFin, which is one ticker in three places with three functions.

On September 16, 2020, Uniswap Labs published Introducing UNI and dated that post the same day, describing UNI as the ERC-20 that enables shared community ownership and a governance system that guides the protocol. The post is a launch note (source: Uniswap Blog, Introducing UNI).

Delegation is a separate click from a transfer, and naming a delegate leaves those coins free to move in the wallet. UNI can sit in your wallet and still count as zero votes until you name a delegate address. Hold the bound: the Governor reads a wallet it can see, and a centralized-exchange ledger line is a different ledger.

DUNI is the legal wrapper around that vote, and membership, as the docs write it, is hold UNI and participate. Depth on that wrapper sits with DUNI as a legal wrapper, and Wyoming law stays off this page.

Supply buckets, vesting calendars, and mint ceilings sit in UNI supply and allocation. The functions on this token stay vote weight, a burn bound, and a venue split.

Keep one picture: UNI is a vote coin with an Ethereum contract, and your 50 UNI do the function of the place they sit. If you wanted a cheaper swap, UNI in the wallet stays optional, while Ethereum gas still needs ETH at the signing address, and a paycheck from protocol fees is off the current burn path, which leaves your wallet undeposited. The September 16, 2020 date is when that coin went live as a vote, which is a different date from BloFin's listing dates below, and a different question from how many coins exist, which sits on the tokenomics page.

UNI, Unichain, and UniswapX

UNI is an ERC-20 coin, Unichain is an Ethereum layer-2, and UniswapX is an intent auction. Mixing those three is how people send the vote token to a chain, or sign an order, and think they used the same thing, because the ticker matches while the contracts differ.

Unichain is a DeFi-focused Ethereum L2 designed for fast blocks, lower costs, and efficient onchain liquidity across chains, which means it has its own blocks and its own gas. A UNI balance on Ethereum mainnet leaves that gas unpaid, and sitting on Unichain is a different fact from holding the vote token on mainnet (source: Uniswap Docs, Unichain overview). If coin-versus-chain vocabulary is still fuzzy, how a coin and a chain differ is the generic split.

Unichain internals, sequencer fees, and chain id 130 are chain facts. ETH on Ethereum mainnet pays that chain's fee market, and Ethereum gas is the generic unit. Unichain charges its own gas token once the wallet is on that L2, so adding the network leaves UNI where it was. You can hold UNI and never add Unichain, and you can add Unichain and still hold zero UNI.

UniswapX is a signed order where fillers compete to fill it, which makes that auction a different thing from UNI. UniswapX orders swap the tokens named in the order, and UNI is optional as the thing being signed. A UniswapX fill can complete while your UNI balance stays put.

Food uni is sea urchin, while UNI the ticker is this ERC-20, so a sushi menu and a coin chart share three characters. Look at the host if a search result is a recipe.

The useful split is boring, and that is the point. Coin, chain, and intent router are three things, and the ticker UNI names the coin.

Protocol fees that burn UNI

Since December 2025, protocol fees collected across Uniswap products are used to burn UNI, which is a supply path. Liquidity providers can still earn the LP share in a pool they joined, which is a different claim.

Protocol fees are a portion of swap fees directed to the protocol rather than to LPs (source: Uniswap Docs, Fees). UNIfication in December 2025 started those protocol-fee burns. Later executed votes put protocol fees on all v2 and all v3 pools on the listed chains. Tally 100, executed July 27, 2026, activated v4 protocol fees on a subset of v4 pools on some chains (source: Tally, Uniswap proposal 100). Treat those settings as current.

A burn reduces total supply when UNI is destroyed in the burn contract, and your 50 UNI stay the same count because a burn happened. Your share of outstanding coins can change as supply changes, which is market math. The engineering names TokenJar and Firepit, and the fee-switch walk lives in UNI burns and the fee switch. The bound is simple: a burn leaves your address undeposited.

A 2 percent mint is a governance ceiling. The UNI token docs say there is no active inflation, and that extra UNI would need its own passed vote, so skip treating that ceiling as this year's new coins.

Holders have no individual or pro-rata claim on protocol revenue. Value that accrues through the burn is a check you leave uncashed. If governance later authorizes a different distribution, that would be a new vote.

Price reaction to a burn is a driver question, and what moves the UNI price covers those drivers, so the split to keep is burn versus dividend.

The ERC-20 form, and where UNI lives

UNI is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, so every UNI of that contract is the same type and value as every other UNI of that contract. Bridged copies on other networks are still UNI as a token.

The live token page lists the Ethereum mainnet address as 0x1f9840a85d5aF5bf1D1762F925BDADdC4201F984. Bridged UNI on other networks uses other contracts, and those copies skip being a mainnet vote by default.

UNI holders have governance rights and are represented through DUNI, and value accrual is mediated entirely through this burn mechanism and any other distribution mechanism governance may subsequently authorize, with ERC-20 as the token standard on that page. The same page lists the mainnet UNI token, GovernorBravo, and Timelock addresses. Bridged UNI is listed for networks where the protocol fee is active. Copy the hex from that page or from a bookmark of it (source: Uniswap Docs, UNI token).

The ERC-20 token standard, proposed by Fabian Vogelsteller in November 2015, is an API for tokens inside smart contracts, and an ERC-20 token acts like ETH in one sense: one unit equals another unit of the same contract. UNI is that kind of token, while ETH still pays Ethereum gas, and Ethereum token standards is the generic family picture (source: ethereum.org, ERC-20 Token Standard).

A Uniswap v3 position NFT is a record for a price-range deposit, which makes it a different token from UNI. You can hold the NFT and show a zero UNI balance, or the reverse, because transfers of UNI use the UNI contract while transfers of a position use the position contract.

Fake tickers and look-alike sites are a later safety page. Here the identity fact is enough: one mainnet hex, plus named bridged copies. Matching the ticker UNI in a wallet is a different check from matching that hex.

How circulating supply sits today is a live figure, so leave one unpublished, while supply buckets and mint ceilings sit with tokenomics and the contract hex is the identity fact.

A BloFin UNI line and a vote the Governor can see

A UNI balance on BloFin is still UNI the token as a venue credit, and it is a vote only after it sits in a wallet the Governor can read. A UNIUSDT perpetual is a third thing: a price position, rather than coins you can delegate.

BloFin has listed UNI/USDT on spot since January 15, 2024. BloFin lists two UNI perpetuals: UNIUSDT at up to 75x, listed January 12, 2023, and UNIUSD, an inverse contract settled in UNI, at up to 20x, listed June 27, 2025.

Uniswap is a competing decentralized exchange (DEX), and BloFin is a centralized exchange that lists UNI, and both sentences can be true at once. The generic fork of custody and matching is centralized versus decentralized exchanges. A listing date tells you when this centralized-exchange market went live, and it leaves an exchange fill as an exchange fill.

Suppose you hold UNI/USDT on spot and a small UNIUSDT position. The spot line can be withdrawn to a wallet, and the SWAP line stays a derivative. Even after a withdrawal, the Governor still needs UNI at an address that can sign, plus ETH for gas if the next action is a vote. Support leaves that vote uncast from the sub-account, vote clicks are a later procedure, and the split here is venue versus wallet.

Keep the three piles: spot UNI you can withdraw, a perpetual you close, and UNI in a signing wallet the Governor can see. A later candle that moves UNI's price leaves those three piles on three ledgers, so a profitable UNIUSDT mark stays a derivative even when the spot line could be withdrawn the same afternoon.

What to weigh before you treat UNI as a share or a chain

Treat UNI as a vote coin first, then check which thing is actually on the screen. A share-like paycheck, a chain gas token, and a centralized-exchange fill are different functions. The weigh is which of those you wanted. Your 50 UNI only count for the screen that actually holds them.

You can skip memorizing the address, the listing dates, or the fee-tier list, so carry four checks.

• If the function is a vote, ask whether UNI sits in a wallet the Governor can see, because a centralized-exchange line and a pool deposit stay uncounted until UNI is back in that wallet and delegated.
• If the function is a swap, ask which pool and which gas token, because UNI in the wallet is optional and ETH (or the L2 gas token) still pays the call.
• If the function is Unichain, you are adding a chain, so match the network before you send.
• If the function is a centralized-exchange fill, read whether the screen says UNI/USDT spot, UNIUSDT, or UNIUSD, because those three products share characters and settle differently.

Walk one screen with those checks, and if you see UNIUSD on BloFin, settle is UNI and the Governor still skips that listing. If you see a Unichain network picker, you are picking a chain id. If you see a v3 NFT, that position record can sit next to a zero UNI balance, so none of those screens is a hidden share.

How UNI has traded across cycles is history, and UNI across market cycles covers that history. The thing you would be buying is still this ERC-20 vote token.

The honest close is small: size the holding after you know which function you actually wanted.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use Uniswap if I hold zero UNI?

UNI is used to vote on protocol changes, and using the platform stays optional even at a zero UNI balance. Wikipedia's Uniswap article states that UNI is used to vote on protocol upgrades and changes, while using the platform stays optional (source: Wikipedia, Uniswap). You still need the two pool tokens and the chain's gas token in the signing wallet. A zero UNI balance leaves a USDC/ETH swap open. Check the pair and the gas token on the review screen before you sign.

If I delegate my 50 UNI, can I still send those coins before a vote ends?

Delegation names who casts the weight, and it leaves the coins unlocked. Sending the UNI moves the coins to the next address, and live vote weight moves with them. For a proposal that already passed its start block, the Governor still reads the checkpoint from that block. The old delegate can still cast that frozen amount on that proposal, while the new address waits until a later vote, and a centralized-exchange line still stays uncounted. This is a different product from a staking lock that freezes UNI until a proposal closes.

If my UNI sits in a liquidity pool, can that UNI vote?

UNI deposited in a pool sits inside the pool contract. Governance weight follows UNI a Governor-visible wallet has delegated, so a v2 LP token or a v3 position NFT is a record for that deposit, rather than a Bravo vote. You would withdraw the UNI, then delegate from a signing wallet, before that holding counts. Pool fees you earn as an LP are a different claim from a protocol-fee burn.

Does UNI on Arbitrum vote in the mainnet Governor?

GovernorBravo and Timelock sit on Ethereum mainnet, so weight the Governor counts is mainnet UNI at an address that can sign there. Bridged UNI is still UNI as a token, on that network's contract. Bridging to Arbitrum moves the coins off that view. Bring them back to mainnet, or keep a mainnet holding, if the function is an onchain Uniswap vote.

After I collect UNI fees from a v3 NFT, does that UNI vote automatically?

Collect sends the LP share to the wallet that owns the NFT. Those coins are UNI, and they become a vote once you delegate them from a Governor-visible address, while the NFT itself still skips Bravo weight. If collect lands on a centralized-exchange deposit address, they are a venue credit again. The 50 UNI that were never in the pool are a separate holding. Mixing the two on one screen is how people think a collect just voted.

Does closing a UNIUSDT position send UNI into a wallet the Governor can see?

Closing UNIUSDT is a BloFin book fill, and PnL settles in the margin asset for that linear contract, which is USDT, rather than a UNI withdrawal, so spot UNI/USDT is the product you withdraw. After a close you still have zero Governor-visible UNI unless you already held spot and withdrew it, and a fill id on BloFin is a different record from a mainnet transfer, so support leaves that close outside GovernorBravo.

If UNIUSD settles in UNI, can I delegate that UNI while it still sits on BloFin?

Inverse settlement in UNI is still a venue ledger claim until you withdraw. Delegation is an onchain call on Ethereum mainnet UNI, and the venue desk skips being a Governor caller. You would withdraw UNI to a signing wallet, then delegate. Until then, UNIUSD PnL stays off the Governor, even though the settle currency is UNI. A USD quote on that listing leaves the withdraw in place.

Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. Updated September 2026. Primary sources include the Introducing UNI genesis post, the Uniswap UNI token docs, the Uniswap fees page, and the ethereum.org ERC-20 standard. All facts independently verified against cited documentation current as of September 2026.

This article is educational and general in nature, not financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrencies like UNI carry real risks, including price volatility, venue custody risk, smart-contract risk in ecosystem apps, and the chance of losing funds. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or participate in any project. Do your own research, and consider speaking with a licensed professional before making financial decisions. BloFin does not provide investment advice.