Uniswap Labs responds to Wells’ notice, calls SEC’s legal action ‘weak and wrong’
Uniswap Labs, the developer of decentralized exchange Uniswap, has responded to a notice issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Wells.
The SEC alleged that the DEX acted as an unregistered stock exchange and unregistered securities broker-dealer for Uniswap Labs and that UNI tokens represented investment contracts, Uniswap Labs said in a release Tuesday.
In response, Uniswap Labs said the SEC’s “aggressive theory” is attempting to expand the regulator’s reach beyond its jurisdiction, adding that it believes the House of Representatives will pass a bill granting the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) authority over digital asset trading. Yes. Uniswap Labs also believes that regulators should “embrace open source technologies that improve outdated commercial and financial systems instead of attempting litigation.”
“We are confident that our work is on the right side of history,” Uniswap wrote on Tuesday. “The SEC should not be expending taxpayer-funded resources filing lawsuits against us.”
‘Weak and incorrect’ argument
Uniswap Labs’ leadership breaks down why many of the SEC’s criticisms of decentralized exchanges are misguided.
As Marvin Ammori, the company’s chief legal officer, explained about social media platform
“The SEC is targeting state assets and individuals far beyond its authority,” Ammori said. “The protocol is overwhelmingly used to trade explicit commodities. About 65% of transactions occur in ETH, WBTC, and stablecoins alone. About 75% of usage occurs outside the United States. The math on these two “More than 90% of silver trading volume obviously means more than 90% of trading volume, so at best the SEC is going to bring cases against a very small amount of commodity technology, a tail-wagging amount.”
“The legal arguments against Uniswap are weak and wrong,” Ammori added. “The SEC argument is based on the false assumption that ‘all’ tokens are securities (the SEC denies registration), but tokens are just file formats, such as PDF or JPEG. A token can represent any value, and PDF is They are not inherently stock certificates and tokens are not inherently securities.”
Uniswap Wells Notice
On April 10, the SEC issued a notice to Wells against Uniswap Labs. Wells notices indicate future legal action against the recipient.
Others in the cryptocurrency industry supported Uniswap and viewed the regulator’s move as an attack on cryptocurrencies, and decentralized finance in particular.
However, the Wells notice did not delay DEX trading. Within days of receiving this, Uniswap’s trading volume reached nearly $3 trillion.
Uniswap is one of the largest decentralized exchanges by trading volume, The Block’s data dashboard shows. Spot trading volume in April was $71.45 billion, accounting for 56% of the total monthly trading volume.
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