Binance Coin (BNB) Chain Blocked Upon Launch! CZ Fires Back: Is Uniswap Controlled by a16z?

"Is Uniswap controlled by a16z?" Binance founder Changpeng Zhao tweeted.

"Is Uniswap controlled by a16z?" Binance founder Zhao Changpeng tweeted.

This is because the well-known U.S. venture capital firm a16z used all of its Uniswap governance votes to veto the proposal to launch Uniswap on the BNB Chain. Proposal.

"Cross-chain protocol Wormhole" may be a key factor.

DeFi observers believe that because a16z is the largest investor in Layer Zero, this protocol is also the biggest competitor to Wormhole in this proposal. Because LayerZero lost to Wormhole in the community survey, a16z did not let this proposal pass.

Zhao Changpeng CZ also retweeted this post, questioning whether Uniswap is being controlled by a16z. CZ believes that on-chain voting only shows which whales control the blockchain, just like shareholders and other stakeholders.

Uniswap controlled by a16z? https://t.co/9QTi1KjVjG

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) February 5, 2023

However, for the largest AMM on the BNB Chain, this incident at least reduced the competition from the strong Ethereum brand.

But for BNB Chain, it missed the opportunity to expand the ecosystem and increase the use cases for BNB.

However, it proves one thing. Although Uniswap has always been criticized for the uselessness of the UNI token (because it has never had a revenue-sharing mechanism or other uses), only low participation in governance purposes. But the governance outcome of UNI this time may just show its value, and a16z's dominant voting rights can also be contested by other organizations interested in controlling the protocol.