Jump and a16z Fight for Uniswap Bridge Privileges

Two of crypto’s largest VCs—Jump and a16z—are trying to influence Uniswap into using their preferred bridging solution for the protocol’s upcoming deployment on BNB Chain.

A Uniswap proposal to deploy the protocol on BNB Chain by using Wormhole is being contested by crypto firm a16z, which wants the decentralized exchange to use LayerZero instead.

Jump vs. Andreessen Horowitz

Two crypto firms are fighting over Uniswap.

The Uniswap community is currently voting on whether to deploy the decentralized exchange onto the BNB Chain—and whether the protocol should use Wormhole or the LayerZero cross-chain bridge solution to do so. 

The proposal has come under scrutiny in the crypto community as it pits two prominent crypto firms—a16z and Jump—against each other. Jump is a major backer of Wormhole, whereas a16z is invested in LayerZero. 

The initial “temperature check” vote saw the Uniswap community overwhelmingly vote in favor of using Wormhole as a bridge (80.28% “yes” votes against 19.72% “no” votes). However, a16z partner Eddie Lazzarin indicated that the firm had not been able to commit its 15 million UNI tokens against the proposal due to technical reasons with regards to its custodial set-up. Due to its massive holdings, VC’s participation may have swung the vote.

Nevertheless, a16z’s stash may not be sufficient to prevent the final proposal from passing. At the time of writing, a total 39.63 million votes had been cast, with over 61.67% in favor of deploying Uniswap on BNB Chain using Wormhole and 38.32% against. While a16z is the biggest UNI holder to have committed its tokens to vote so far, it has only courted an additional 190,000 votes, bringing the total of votes against the proposal to roughly 15,190,000. Meanwhile, Wormhole backers have secured over 24,440,000 votes thanks to UNI whales such as Robert Leshner, GFX Labs, and Argent.

However, it’s worth noting that only 3.9% of all UNI tokens have been committed to vote so far: the process is therefore far from a done deal and could still swing either way. Voting concludes on February 10. 

Disclaimer: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and several other crypto assets.