Doctoral Research · W. Karanja
Nodal Governance in Decentralised Finance
An Analysis of Off-Chain and On-Chain Governance in the Uniswap Network
Wanjiku Karanja · Stanford Law School · JSD Dissertation 2026
47
On-chain proposals
218
Snapshot votes
892
Wallet addresses
14.2k
Forum posts
5 yrs
Study period
Enter the Dashboard
Overview · Timeline · Delegate Network · Forum Analysis · Methodology
3 layers
Nodal governance
Forum deliberation, Snapshot signalling, and on-chain execution mapped as distinct but interdependent governance nodes.
892 wallets
Power & delegation
Concentration of voting power, delegation networks, and the structural role of institutional delegates across the study period.
5 years
Governance evolution
How Uniswap's governance mechanisms, participation patterns, and power structures shifted from launch through V4 deployment.
About this research
Research context

What this research examines

Decentralised autonomous organisations like Uniswap challenge existing governance theory by distributing authority across pseudonymous wallet addresses, smart contracts, and informal deliberative spaces simultaneously.

This dissertation develops a nodal governance framework to analyse how power flows between these layers — and whether the formal on-chain vote represents the true locus of decision-making, or merely ratifies choices made elsewhere.

The dataset spans September 2020 (UNI token launch) through December 2025, covering all substantive governance activity including the Uniswap Foundation formation, V3 and V4 deployments, and the recurring fee switch debate.

Research questions
RQ1
How is governance authority distributed between on-chain and off-chain nodes in the Uniswap network, and how has this distribution evolved over the study period?
RQ2
To what extent does delegation reproduce or concentrate voting power, and which actor categories exercise disproportionate influence?
RQ3
What is the relationship between forum deliberation and formal voting outcomes — does discourse function as genuine epistemic filtering or as post-hoc ratification?
RQ4
What governance design implications follow for regulators and protocol designers seeking to improve legitimacy in decentralised systems?