PancakeSwap has officially begun rolling out its highly anticipated Tokenomics 3.0 upgrade for the CAKE token. In an announcement on April 21, the team confirmed that key changes would take effect starting April 23, 2025.
As part of the overhaul, staking and governance through veCAKE will be phased out. Users with locked CAKE or veCAKE positions will have a six-month window to redeem their tokens on a 1:1 basis. This move is part of a broader shift toward a new economic model.
The updated framework will adopt a buy-and-burn revenue-sharing model, with a hard cap of 450 million CAKE tokens. Yield farming rewards will gradually be phased out to combat inflation and ensure a more sustainable growth path while continuing to incentivize long-term community support.
The transition will be implemented in two phases, reducing CAKE emissions from 29,000 per day to 20,000 and eventually to 14,500. These changes are projected to remove approximately 5.3 million CAKE tokens from circulation each year through permanent burns.
However, the move hasn’t been without controversy. Cakepie DAO, one of the largest CAKE holders leveraging the veCAKE mechanism, has raised objections. They allege voting discrepancies during the proposal’s approval and criticized the elimination of decentralized governance tools.
The DAO proposed alternatives such as incentivizing high-performing pools and penalizing early withdrawals instead of scrapping the current model entirely. In response, PancakeSwap has extended an offer of up to $1.5 million worth of CAKE as compensation for Cakepie users, provided the DAO agrees to a 1:1 redemption plan for mCAKE holders.
Despite the debate, CAKE’s market sentiment has shown signs of a rebound. The token is currently trading at $2.01—up 0.7% in the past 24 hours—with daily trading volume jumping 36% to $78.6 million. According to DeFiLlama, PancakeSwap’s 24-hour DEX volume has reached $1.03 billion, surpassing Uniswap’s $896 million. Weekly volume for PancakeSwap also climbed by 5%, while Uniswap experienced a 39% decline.
On the technical side, CAKE is bouncing back from a recent low of $1.60 and nearing its Bollinger Band midline. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) has moved to 53.95 above the neutral zone suggesting renewed bullish momentum. A clear breakout above $2.05 could open the door to the next major resistance level at $2.50.
