UNI is the native token of the Uniswap decentralized exchange protocol. It was created in September 2020 as part of Uniswap's V3 upgrade and is designed to be a governance token for the protocol. UNI holders can vote on proposals to change various aspects of how Uniswap works, such as fees, adding new features, or modifying existing ones. UNI tokens were distributed to users who had swapped cryptocurrencies on Uniswap prior to its V3 upgrade. The UNI airdrop was one of the largest in Ethereum history, with over 1 billion dollars worth of UNI being given away for free. Since its launch, UNI has become one of the most popular Ethereum-based tokens, with a market capitalization that currently exceeds 5 billion dollars.