Uniswap Foundation Drops $5.8M in 2024, But Here's the Catch!

From Payroll to Hackathons: Where Did the Money Go?

Hang onto your hats, crypto fans! The Uniswap Foundation just spilled the beans on their 2024 financials, and it's a wild ride. They splashed out nearly $5.8 million on everything from salaries to swanky events, but guess what? They only raked in $1.11 million. Talk about a financial rollercoaster!

Yeah, you heard that right. The brains behind the Uniswap exchange platform, a non-profit no less, spent a cool $5.79 million to keep the lights on, while their revenue trickled in from donations, dividends, and a bit of interest. It's like watching a high-stakes poker game, but with crypto!

So, where did all that cash go? Well, the biggest slice of the pie, $3.13 million, went straight to payroll. We're talking salaries, benefits, and taxes - the whole shebang. And they didn't stop there; another $1.68 million flew out the door for fancy stuff like legal advice, accounting, and those all-important technical audits.

But wait, there's more! They dropped around $290,000 on advertising and marketing, splashing it on web design, agency work, and hosting events that were probably lit. You can almost feel the energy, right?

"2024 marked a critical inflection point for the Uniswap Foundation, as we laid the groundwork for ecosystem alignment and value capture. Over the past year, Uniswap Foundation initiatives drove the growth and activation of the Uniswap developer community, accelerating the social and governance infrastructure that sustains them."

Uniswap Foundation's head of finance Natalia Ra

And they didn't skimp on the fun stuff either. They spent about $174,000 jetting around to conferences and other external events. Plus, they forked out $116,000 on office expenses like software, transaction fees, and those epic internal team offsites. Insurance? Check. They shelled out another $290,000, mostly for directors and officers coverage. And let's not forget the nearly $116,000 they threw at hackathons. It's like they're trying to keep the party going!

But here's the kicker: by the end of the year, they still had a hefty $29.8 million in fiat and stablecoins, plus 0.59 million UNI tokens stashed away. That's their war chest to keep the grants flowing, the operations humming, and the team motivated right through 2025. It's like they're playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers!

On the grant side, they committed a whopping $14.8 million in 2024 and actually paid out $9.9 million of it, with $3.1 million hitting the streets in the fourth quarter alone. And get this: they poured $4.59 million into developer support, onboarding over 1,000 new Uniswap devs through Uniday and global hackathons. It's like they're building an army of crypto wizards!

But they didn't stop there. They also dropped $2.19 million on research grants and $1.54 million on governance work. It's like they're trying to take over the world, one grant at a time!