UNI whale outflows hit 5-year high as Binance withdrawals top 7,200

UNI holders pulled tokens off Binance at the fastest pace in five years, even as the token trades 90 percent below its 2021 peak.

UNI holders pulled tokens off Binance at the fastest pace in five years, with top daily withdrawals averaging over 7,200 tokens, CryptoQuant data show.

The monthly average of the ten largest UNI withdrawal transactions from Binance has reached its highest level since 2021, CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said.

Some single days topped 10,000 UNI. The pattern points to accumulation rather than panic selling, with large holders treating recent weakness as an entry point. UNI on Ethereum last changed hands near $3.96 as of Aug. 5, up 1.71 percent over 24 hours, with a market capitalization of about $2.47 billion, ranking it 38th among cryptocurrencies. The token remains more than 91 percent below its all-time high of $44.92 set on May 3, 2021.

The key event to watch in the second half of August is the first weekly data consolidating the actual volume of UNI removed from circulation through v4 pools and Robinhood Chain, which will determine whether the outflow pace holds.

Fee Switch Triples Protocol Revenue as Burns Expand to v4

UNI climbed from near $3.50 in mid-July to a 90-day high above $4.70 by Aug. 1 before easing back to $3.96. The rally coincided with a governance vote expanding Uniswap's fee and burn mechanism, approved under the UNIfication proposal in December 2025, to version 4 (v4) pools.

The expansion routes v4 trading fees into UNI burns, building on a mechanism already active on v2 and v3 pools across 11 blockchain networks. A separate vote published in mid-July extended the same fee and burn scheme to Robinhood Chain, the blockchain network built by trading platform Robinhood.

Protocol revenue has nearly tripled since the July 27 activation to about $325,000 per day headed toward UNI burns, versus roughly $114,000 per day earlier in July, according to DeFiLlama data. About 107.8 million UNI have been burned in total, with around $28 million of burn-bound revenue accrued so far. In July alone, more than 340,000 new tokens launched via Robinhood-based launchpads on Uniswap, generating $3.6 billion of volume, and 106,000 UNI were burned in a single day on July 29.

New addresses interacting with Uniswap roughly doubled to 582 in the days around the rally, while whale transactions above $100,000 climbed to 142 on July 30, according to Santiment. Active addresses reached 2,457 on July 31, above the usual range of 1,300 to 1,700. Santiment data suggest the acceleration stems from adoption driven by protocol fee restructuring rather than short-term speculation alone.

The move mirrors similar whale buying on Ethereum and XRP networks late last month, where high-volume wallets absorbed tokens during the same correction. UNI remains among the major altcoins that have yet to reclaim previous cycle highs, having dropped to $2.316 on June 6, its lowest level in roughly five years, days after Standard Chartered projected UNI could reach $100 by 2030. It has since recovered, up 21.7 percent over the past month and 52 percent over the past two months, though still down 32 percent year-to-date.

Whether the outflow pace holds beyond August depends on measurable burn volume from the fee expansion. Continued adoption, rather than price alone, may ultimately determine how long whales keep accumulating, with traders watching whether outflows stay elevated now that the fee mechanism covers v4 pools and Robinhood Chain alike.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.