ECB DeFi Governance Study Finds Concentration of Power Amid Top Token Holders

AECB Working Paper No. 3208 analyzes governance data from Aave, MakerDAO (Sky), Ampleforth, and Uniswap, revealing outsized influence by top holders and delegates with regulatory implications.

Rich by Coin

2026-03-28

Paragraph 1
A new ECB working paper finds that governance over major DeFi protocols is controlled by a narrow group of token holders, delegates, and centralized exchanges, raising questions about accountability. The paper, ECB Working Paper No. 3208, examined governance data from Aave, MakerDAO (Sky), Ampleforth, and Uniswap across two snapshots, November 2022 and May 2023. Token concentration figures were stark, with the top 100 holders across all four protocols controlling more than 80% of the governance token supply. For Aave and Uniswap, the top five holders alone captured nearly half of all tokens, while Ampleforth saw the top five controlling close to 60%.

Paragraph 2
Researchers then attempted to identify who actually sits behind those addresses. For most protocols, roughly half or more of all holdings trace back to either the protocol itself, through treasuries, founders, or developer allocations, or to centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges. Binance, according to the report’s data, held the largest share among centralized platforms across all four protocols, ranging from 2% to 15% depending on the protocol. The picture was no clearer when researchers examined who votes. Top voters were almost entirely delegates, individuals, or entities to whom smaller token holders assign their voting power. Identifying those delegates proved difficult, as researchers relied on web searches, Github, social media, governance forums, and a Crystal Intelligence analytics tool. The picture was no clearer when researchers examined who votes.

Paragraph 3
Top voters were almost entirely delegates, individuals, or entities to whom smaller token holders assign their voting power. Identifying those delegates proved difficult, as researchers relied on web searches, Github, social media, governance forums, and a Crystal Intelligence analytics tool. Even so, about one-third of top voters across the sample could not be identified; where identification was possible, individuals accounted for roughly 21%, Web3 companies about 19%, and Uniswap’s top voter was Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) with voting power delegated by 125 addresses by May 2023. The concentration of governance power remained stable across the snapshots, suggesting durable power structures and complicating market-dynamic remedies.