UNI token is the everyday name for the asset covered in full under Uniswap (UNI), which explains its history, supply and market. This short page explains the phrase, which traders often use to tell the token apart from the Uniswap exchange itself.
Uniswap is a decentralized exchange that lets people swap tokens through liquidity pools run by smart contracts, an approach known as an automated market maker. The software and the token are separate things: anyone can trade on Uniswap without owning UNI. The token's main job is voting. As a governance token, it lets holders propose and decide changes to the protocol and to the use of its community treasury.
UNI was created in September 2020 as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, with a fixed genesis supply of one billion tokens. Part of that supply went straight to past users through an airdrop of 400 UNI per eligible address, a move that helped popularise retroactive airdrops across decentralized finance. The rest was set aside for the community, the team, investors and advisers, released over several years.
Because "Uniswap" can mean the protocol, the company that built it or the token, writers often add "token" to make clear they mean the tradable asset.