Uniswap Becomes Latest Crypto Firm to Have SEC Investigation Dropped

The US Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) has officially dropped its probe into Uniswap Labs , adding to its growing list of ceased crypto investigations.

Back in April 2024, Uniswap received a Wells Notice from the regulator, alleging that the platform functioned an unregistered broker, exchange, and clearing agency while also issuing an unregistered security.

In a blog post at the time, Uniswap said the SEC's legal arguments are "weak" and have been "refuted" by courts.

"The SEC’s aggressive theories are an effort to expand its jurisdiction beyond exchanges to communications technology – and beyond securities to all markets," Uniswap stated.

A Wells Notice is usually sent ahead of launching a formal lawsuit. Coinbase , Uniswap Labs , Ripple , Robinhood , Consensys , and BUSD issuer Paxos are on the list of crypto firms that have received such notices.

On Tuesday, Uniswap revealed that the regulator's investigation has officially been closed. "As of yesterday, that investigation has officially been closed, and the SEC is taking no enforcement action," Uniswap tweeted.

"This is a huge win for DeFi and reaffirms what we’ve always known – that the technology we build is on the right side of the law, and our work is on the right side of history."

The decision has been plauded by the wider decentralized finance (DeFi). community. Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams has long argued that TradFi regulations are inappropriate for the crypto industry and has advocated for new regulatory frameworks that better align with DeFi.

"This is a huge win, not just for Uniswap Labs but for DeFi as a whole. It reaffirms what we’ve said all along: that decentralized technology and self-custody are inherently different from the centralized, intermediated systems they aim to replace," Adams tweeted.

"Self-custodied funds, with self-executing code run on public blockchains, are a huge step forward in transparency for financial markets. Slapping regulations aimed at centralized, opaque TradFi markets on top of DeFi simply does not work."

Amanda Tuminelli, chief legal officer at the DeFi Education Fund, further explained that the decision “gives DeFi companies additional comfort to pivot from defending to embracing our right to build decentralized tech.”

News of Uniswap's case being dropped sent its token, UNI, up around 5%, at a time when the wider market is suffering a dip.

Last week, the SEC closed its investigation into Robinhood without pursuing an enforcement action.

On 21 February, the SEC's Enforcement Division informed Robinhood that it had concluded its probe, which commenced when the exchange received a Wells Notice in May 2024.

The SEC's pullback comes as the regulator also revealed it is closing its investigation into OpenSea and is dropping its lawsuit against Coinbase .

OpenSea founder and CEO Devin Finzer made the announcement on X, describing it as a "win" and that the regulator's initial attempt to classify NFTs as securities "would have been a step backward—one that misinterprets the law and slows innovation."

Meanwhile, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, said the SEC has agreed “in principle” to dismiss the lawsuit, which accused the exchange of failing to register as a securities platform. The SEC will now vote on dismissing the lawsuit at some point this week.