In April 2022, a group of investors brought Uniswap developers and investors - Uniswap Labs, its founder Hayden Adams, and its investment institutions (Paradigm, Andreesen Horowitz, and Union Square Ventures) to court, accusing the defendants of failing to comply with the U.S. Register under the federal securities laws. The illegal listing of "fraudulent tokens" has caused damage to investors and requires compensation for damages.
The presiding judge Katherine Polk Failla stated that the real defendant in the case should be the issuer of the “fraud token,” not the developer and investor of the Uniswap protocol. Due to the decentralized nature of the protocol, the identity of the issuer of the fraudulent tokens was agnostic to the plaintiffs (and equally agnostic to the defendants). The plaintiff can only sue the defendant in the hope that the court will transfer its right of recourse to the defendant. The reason for the prosecution is that the defendant provided the convenience of issuance and trading platform to the fraudulent token issuer in exchange for the handling fees generated by the transaction.
In addition, the plaintiff also played the role of Gary Gensler, chairman of the SEC, arguing that (1) the tokens sold on Uniswap were unregistered securities; (2) and that Uniswap, as a decentralized exchange for trading security tokens, Registration with relevant stock exchanges and securities brokers should be carried out with regulatory agencies. The court declined to extend securities law to the conduct alleged by the plaintiffs, citing a lack of relevant regulation and concluding that investor concerns "better raised with Congress than with this Court."
Taken together, the judge held that the current crypto regulatory system did not provide a basis for the plaintiff's claims, and that under current U.S. securities laws, Uniswap developers and investors should not be liable for any damages caused by third parties using the protocol, and therefore dismissed the case. Plaintiff's action.