“Last week, a shareholder raised a new issue regarding this study. Due to the unchangeable nature and sensitivity of our proposed upgrade, we had to postpone this vote,” the foundation said in a statement on the “X” platform. While the foundation said the decision was “unexpected” and apologized for the situation, this is not the first time it has postponed a vote on whether to implement a “fee switch” that would direct a modest amount of protocol trading fees to token holders. Likewise, it is not the first case that the interests of token holders often conflict with the interests of other “shareholders” in Uniswap.

“We will continue to keep the community informed of any significant changes and will update you when we are more certain about future timeframes,” the foundation added.

Following the “Summer of DeFi” in 2020, Uniswap launched the UNI token to prevent a “vampire attack” launched by Sushiswap, which quickly began withdrawing liquidity with its governance token, SUSHI. Sushiswap, which is governed by a DAO and directs trading fees to token holders, was seen as relatively more compatible with the community.

Version 2 of Uniswap included code that allowed splitting of 0.3% of trading fees paid to liquidity providers (LPs) who contributed tokens to be traded on the decentralized exchange. Accordingly, 0.25% would go to liquidity providers and the remaining 0.05% would go to UNI token holders. But the “fee key” was never activated.

With the launch of Uniswap V3, discussions about fee switch activation have come up again. GFX Labs, maker of Oku, an interface for Uniswap, has proposed a plan to test protocol fee distribution on several pools that have received a lot of attention in Uniswap V2. But ultimately, the talks failed due to concerns and legal fears that the activation could drive liquidity providers and liquidity away from the platform.

See also: Uniswap’s Hayden Adams: From Ethereum Idealist to Business Realist

One of the biggest concerns at the time was that the fee switch could have tax and securities law implications for UniDAO. Because this would essentially pay a revenue-based dividend to token holders.

It remains unclear exactly what concerns the Uniswap Foundation was trying to address when deciding to postpone the vote once again. Gabriel Shapiro, a leading legal expert on cryptocurrencies, wrote that this is another example of a DeFi protocol treating token holders as “second-class” citizens who subordinate their desires to a smaller group of stakeholders.

Similar arguments were voiced late last year when Uniswap Labs introduced a 0.15% trading fee on its front-end website and wallet. This was the development group’s first attempt to directly convert its work into cash. The fee was only applied to products maintained by Uniswap Labs, not the exchange protocol itself. However, this initiative was realized after raising funds of $ 165 million.

There is no need to be completely cynical here, and it would be wrong to say that the coded fee key will never be implemented to reward UNI token holders. Uniswap Labs and UNI token holders are separate entities with their own interests; ideally, both should work in harmony to do what is best for the protocol itself.

But if there’s one lesson to be learned from DeFi, it’s that token holders don’t always have the final say.