Orca Crypto
DeFi term

Governance token

A token that grants voting rights over how a protocol is run.

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Updated 2026-08-303 min readDefinition
Definition

A token that grants voting rights over how a protocol is run.

Governance tokens let holders vote on parameters, treasury spending and upgrades. In theory this decentralizes control. In practice turnout is often low and large holders decide most outcomes.

A governance token is not automatically a claim on revenue. Many confer votes and nothing else, which matters a great deal for valuation.

In practice

UNI holders govern Uniswap. Whether and how the protocol shares fees with them has been debated for years.

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