Ethereum DeFi Exchange Uniswap Says SEC Has Dropped Its Investigation

Another one bites the dust. On Tuesday, Uniswap Labs—the creator of leading Ethereum decentralized exchange, Uniswap—said that the Securities and Exchange Commission had closed its investigation of the firm without filing charges.

The news echoes announcements in recent days from trading platform Robinhood and NFT marketplace OpenSea, both of which similarly revealed that the American securities regulator had indicated that it was ending its investigations into them.

Uniswap Labs revealed in April 2024 that it had received a Wells notice from the SEC—a typical precursor to enforcement action, and one that many crypto firms have faced in recent years under the leadership of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

But Gensler resigned when President Donald Trump took office last month, and his SEC has signaled a much more welcoming approach to regulating crypto in the U.S.

That includes the SEC establishing a crypto task force that has been meeting with major companies in the space, plus last week's announcement from crypto exchange Coinbase that the regulator has agreed to drop its charges against the firm, pending commissioner approval.

"This investigation took over 3 years, forcing us to waste incredible amounts of time and millions of dollars," Uniswap Labs founder Hayden Adams wrote on X. "It also had a personal impact—federal investigations are violating and stressful to the point where there is a saying among lawyers that 'the investigation IS the punishment.' That shouldn’t be the price of innovation in the U.S."

SEC Ends Robinhood Investigation 'With No Action'

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has ended its investigation into trading platform Robinhood Crypto "with no action," the company said in a statement. According to the firm, the SEC's Enforcement Division advised Robinhood Crypto that "it had concluded its investigation and did not intend to move forward with an enforcement action," after sending the company a Wells Notice in May 2024 notifying it of a pending enforcement action. An SEC spokesperson told Decrypt that the regulator dec...

"This is a huge win, not just for Uniswap Labs but for DeFi as a whole," he continued. "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."

The SEC declined comment when reached by Decrypt.

The price of UNI spiked from $7.87 to $8.28 following the announcement, but has since settled to a current price of $8.11, per data from CoinGecko. The coin remains down 2% on the day and 12% on the week amid a broader market plunge.

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details, including a response from the SEC.