There is no maximum set to how many UNI tokens can be in existence, as the UNI max supply if infinite. 1 billion was the initial amount of UNI tokens created, but starting 4 years after its launch, an additional 2% will enter circulation each year.
The inflation is designed to reward UNI holders that actively participate in Uniswap governance and discourage those that don’t. Over time, the amount of UNI distributed to community members will gradually increase through this mechanism.
Here is how the intial Uniswap supply was divided:
Uniswap is one of the leading projects in decentralized finance and has made numerous milestones since it began in 2018. A few of its most impressive achievements are:
November 2018 – Uniswap launches on the Ethereum mainnet
May 2020 – Uniswap launches the v2 version of its protocol
September 2020 – The TVL of Uniswap surpasses $1 billion
September 2020 – Uniswap launches the UNI token
May 2021 – Uniswap v3 launches on the Ethereum mainnet
May 2021 – The TVL of Uniswap surpasses $10 billion
July 2021 – Uniswap launches on the Optimism layer 2
June 2022 – Uniswap Labs acquires Genie, an NFT marketplace aggregator