False rumors are swirling through the crypto community, and Uniswap’s CEO Hayden Adams isn’t having any of it.
Recently, allegations surfaced on X, claiming that Uniswap has been demanding hefty payments from DeFi protocols for deploying their services.
Adams quickly stepped in to set the record straight on September 12, adamantly denying that Uniswap Labs or the Uniswap Foundation charge any fees for these protocol deployments.
The CEO’s response came after X user Alexander claimed that Uniswap had asked developers to pay $20 million for what he called “an ineffective deployment.”
This statement was made in response to a tweet from Kene Ezeji-Okoye, co-founder of Millicent Labs, who alleged that Uniswap had charged $10 million for a protocol deployment, plus an additional $10 million for user incentives tied to carbon credit trading. Alexander has yet to comment further.
Uniswap is a widely-used protocol for providing liquidity and trading ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Developed by Uniswap Labs, the protocol and interface have faced increasing regulatory scrutiny.
According to the latest crypto news, on September 4, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charged Uniswap Labs with illegally offering leveraged cryptocurrency trading to U.S. retail investors. The company settled the charges by paying a $175,000 civil penalty and agreed to stop violating the Commodity Exchange Act.
In a previous incident, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged that Uniswap operated an unregistered securities exchange. Uniswap responded, stating that it is a software company based in New York, focused on “reimagining market structures,” and does not function as an exchange, broker, or clearing firm.
Adams expressed frustration at what he perceived as the SEC’s priority of protecting outdated systems rather than consumers, and acknowledged the ongoing battle with U.S. regulators to defend Uniswap’s role in the industry.As of September 12, Uniswap held approximately $4.35 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to data from DefiLlama, making it one of the leading decentralized finance protocols across more than a dozen blockchain networks.
