Uniswap, the largest DEX in the DeFi ecosystem, has shared that it has received a cease and desist order from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The price of UNI has reacted with a dump of -16% in the last 24 hours.
Uniswap fights for DeFi after receiving a cease and desist order from the US SEC
Yesterday, Uniswap, the famous decentralized crypto-exchange (DEX), announced that it has received a Wells notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States, which intends to take legal action.
Today Uniswap Labs received a Wells notice from the SEC
And we’re ready to fight
This is the latest political effort to target even the best actors in crypto like Uniswap and Coinbase
All Uniswap products and the Uniswap Protocol are unaffectedhttps://t.co/i2p5LubELk
— Uniswap Labs
(@Uniswap) April 10, 2024
“Today Uniswap Labs received a Wells notice from the SEC. And we are ready to fight. This is the latest political effort to target even the best cryptocurrency actors like Uniswap and Coinbase. All Uniswap products and the Uniswap protocol are not affected.”
In its statement, Uniswap highlights the behavior of the SEC, stating that instead of providing clarity or a registration path for those operating legally in the United States, they prefer to target even the best blockchain actors.
Not only that, Uniswap shares its idea on the issue of unregistered tokens and securities, on which the SEC has been initiating several lawsuits for years, such as the one against Ripple and Coinbase.
On this point, the DEX states that tokens are a digital format like a pdf or spreadsheet, on which many types of value can be stored. For this reason, they are not inherently securities, just as every sheet of paper is not a stock certificate.
With this premise, Uniswap argues that tokens traded on secondary markets like its platform are not investment contracts.
If there were a token that could represent a title, for Uniswap it is still the SEC guilty of refusing to create a registration path for companies.
Uniswap fights for DeFi: CEO annoyed by SEC’s Wells notice
Commenting on the Uniswap-SEC news, the CEO of the DEX, Hayden Adams, also weighed in.
In a long tweet, Adams says he is not surprised by the SEC’s enforcement notice, but feels annoyed, disappointed, and ready to fight for DeFi.
“When I started building Uniswap, the goal was not to reimagine finance. It was an experiment in radically decentralized and fully automated onchain market. I didn’t know if it would work or if anyone would use it. Today, the Uniswap protocol has processed over $2 trillion in volume. Many thousands of teams and developers have forked our code or built on top of it. We have built a completely new financial infrastructure, transparent, fair, secure, and accessible that powers an entire sector.”
After describing his journey, Adams talked about the reason why he never wanted to leave the USA, home of Uniswap, stating that blockchain technology is powerful and is here to stay, just like what happened with the Internet. That’s why there would be no need to hide.
Adams then goes on to state that in his opinion the SEC, rather than protecting consumers, seems to be more interested in protecting opaque systems, citing the failed crypto-exchange FTX.
For this reason, Adams concludes his tweet as follows:
“And we will have to fight against a US government agency to protect our company and our industry. This fight will last for years, it could go all the way to the Supreme Court, and the future of financial technology and our industry is at stake. If we are united, we can win. I believe it is worth fighting for freedom. I think it is worth fighting for DeFi.”
The price of UNI drops by -16% in the last 24 hours
Meanwhile, however, the market’s first reaction does not seem to be positive. In fact, in the last 24 hours, immediately after the news published by Uniswap, the native token of the DEX has recorded a -16% drop.
At the time of writing, UNI is worth $9.37, compared to $11.20 before the SEC enforcement notice was published.
Not only that, in the last 24 hours, there has been an increase in volumes for UNI of +396%.
Anyway, UNI remains in 21st place in the overall crypto ranking, with its 5.6 billion dollars of market cap.
Uniswap embodies the future of decentralized exchanges, having revolutionized the way people trade cryptocurrencies and tokens by introducing a unique approach based on liquidity pools and mathematical formulas.