Uniswap Prepares for SEC Battle, Reveals Financials

Before the community moves to vote to enable and distribute fees independently, the charity behind Uniswap, the Uniswap Foundation, recently looked over its financials.

A financial sheet the foundation provided shows that at the conclusion of the first quarter, it had 730,000 UNI tokens in addition to $41.41 million in cash and stablecoins. The UNI tokens are allocated for employee awards; the cash and stablecoins are set aside for grant commitments and operational activities.

UNI token holders will vote for a new fee system later this week that will move some incentives from the liquidity providers of the decentralized exchange to its token holders instead.

Should approval be granted, the proposal will hand the mainnet UniswapV3Factory to a new V3FactoryOwner contract, based on past snapshot votes, most likely. A second vote, not yet planned, will implement the new fee distribution scheme.

This coincides with the Uniswap Foundation being ready to battle the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Foundation received a Wells notification from the SEC lately indicating that it plans to be recommended for future enforcement action.

Arguing they are investment contracts and claiming they violate securities rules, the Wells Notice targets Uniswap’s UNI and LP tokens. Uniswap Labs contests this, claiming LP tokens are only bookkeeping tools, and the SEC lacks jurisdiction.

Uniswap also contends that it falls short of the SEC’s basic term for an exchange.