The company overseeing the development of the Uniswap decentralized protocol, Uniswap Labs, has responded to Wells' notice sent by the SEC in April.
In the response, Uniswap Labs assures that it has not violated US securities laws, as alleged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company argues that crypto tokens are not securities, but are simply a form of files like PDFs.
Uniswap creator and CEO Hayden Adams, who shared part of the response the company sent to the SEC, asserted that the regulator is exceeding its functions, trying to drastically expand its jurisdiction to “cover all digital value, open source code and general-purpose Internet communications protocols.
According to Adams, this is not the job of the SEC, recalling that the agency's mission and objective is to enforce disclosures related to the sale and trading of securities and that, in fact, it is not the world's Internet police.
Uniswap Labs received a Wells notice from the SEC's enforcement division last month, in which the securities agency noted that the operation of the decentralized exchange (DEX) could be violating existing securities laws. At the time of receiving this notice, Adams assured that he was ready to fight.
Uniswap Labs champions innovation on Web3
The SEC has taken strong regulatory measures against several companies and projects in the crypto industry, adopting a reckless approach that threatens and stifles innovation and technological development in the United States, instead of protecting consumers and investors, according to Adams.
The CEO of Uniswap also stated that the regulatory agency has been causing immeasurable damage in the country to people, companies and the state itself, which is why the company is willing to dedicate its resources to defending the right to innovation in the growing blockchain and Web3 industry.
“We are proud of our work and we have nothing to hide. “We are ready to fight for Uniswap and DeFi in court,” Adams asserted.
The SEC has weak arguments
According to Uniswap Labs, the arguments presented by the Securities Commission, to accuse Uniswap of operating in unregulated securities and to classify the UNI token as a security, are weak and erroneous.
In her professional , the company highlighted that Uniswap is not an unregulated securities broker, as argued by the SEC, but rather is an autonomous and decentralized token exchange protocol, that does not depend on any central team, and that “allows users to transact directly with each other, securely, without paying commissions to centralized intermediaries or depending on them to keep their assets safe.” He also noted that Uniswap is accessible to anyone anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that the protocol allows users to directly access the markets and custody their own assets, to carry out transactions that They are transparent and can be verified by anyone, with instant settlement.
“The Protocol is a general-purpose computer program that anyone can use and integrate, like TCP/IP”, highlighted Uniswap Labs.
In relation to the classification of UNI as a value, he highlighted that the protocol's native token was distributed free of charge to thousands of users for their participation in the early days of the protocol, and that no investment contract or expectations of profits were involved. solely from the efforts of Uniswap Labs.
Uniswap has specialist lawyers with successful cases in the criptoindustry
Former SEC enforcement chief Andrew Ceresney and former US Attorney General Don Verrilli lead the Uniswap Labs legal team.
Ceresney and Verrilli represented Ripple and Grayscale Investments, respectively, in their separate cases against the SEC, achieving a 2-0 winning record in cases involving regulatory actions taken by the SEC in the crypto industry.
Main image from The Wall Street Journal
