Alpha Recap #17: Uniswap Fee Switch, Fluid Expands to BNB Chain, and Aave Governance Votes

The Alpha Recap highlights the most important crypto market Alphas of the week. Every Friday, we bring you a concise selection of the most valuable insights from our Alpha Feed.

Reserved for OAK Premium members, the Alpha Feed gathers insights, yield and airdrop strategies, as well as key market intelligence. In other words, it reflects OAK Research’s core DNA: delivering curated content that cuts through market noise.

Uniswap Expands Its Fee Switch Across 8 Layer 2 Networks

At the end of December, Uniswap initiated a strategic shift with the “Unification” proposal, designed to place the UNI token back at the center of the protocol through the activation of the fee switch.

On February 18, a new proposal extending protocol fee capture beyond Ethereum was introduced and has since been adopted. It applies to eight Layer 2 networks: Arbitrum, Base, Celo, OP Mainnet, Soneium, X Layer, Worldchain, and Zora.

In practice, fees collected on these Layer 2s are redirected to an intermediary address, then bridged back to Layer 1 before being sent to the burn address. For Base and Arbitrum alone, this could represent roughly $4 million worth of UNI tokens repurchased each month, based on recent volumes.

The proposal also standardizes fee management across v2 and v3 pools, with protocol fees now applied automatically through a unified mechanism. Over time, the fee switch is expected to extend to Uniswap v4, further consolidating value capture around the UNI token.

→ Read our full analysis of the fee switch, its mechanics, and its objectives:

Capturing Yield on Fluid

The lending protocol Fluid has expanded to BNB Chain through a partnership with Venus, the largest lending and borrowing protocol in that ecosystem.

Users can deposit USDC, USDT, BNB, or U, a BNB Chain-native stablecoin. Current APRs on the three stablecoins range between 6.3% and 8.22%. Just a day earlier, rates were more than double, and they are expected to gradually stabilize as liquidity increases.

To incentivize adoption, $1 million has been allocated to early users. The larger and earlier the deposit, the greater the potential reward. Calculations will be conducted over a 60-day period, with the prize pool distributed at the end.

→ Read our full overview of Fluid, positioned at the intersection of DEX and lending:

The End of Aave?

Aave is undoubtedly going through one of the most delicate periods in its history. The leading lending protocol in DeFi is now the stage of an open confrontation between Aave Labs and its DAO, which includes several historical Service Providers.

Tensions erupted in December following the revelation that revenue generated from in-app swaps had been redirected to Aave Labs via a CoWSwap integration without explicit DAO approval. What began as a specific governance concern quickly escalated into deeper disagreements over transparency, governance structure, and value distribution.

More recently, Aave Labs submitted a proposal titled “Aave Will Win,” suggesting that 100% of protocol revenues be redirected to the DAO in exchange for a budget of roughly $51 million, while formalizing the transition toward Aave V4 and the gradual phase-out of V3, currently the protocol’s economic backbone.

The proposal has sharply divided the ecosystem. Several Service Providers are challenging both the size of the requested budget and the strategic direction. In this context, BGD Labs, widely regarded as the protocol’s technical architect, announced its departure, reinforcing the perception of a pivotal moment.

A Temp Check vote is currently underway, with the outcome set to be determined on Tuesday.

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