Morning Minute | The SEC Is Suing Uniswap
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🚨 The SEC Comes for DeFi
Gary Gensler just can't get enough.
After largely failing in recent pursuits and getting chastised by U.S. Congress, his cohorts at the SEC are back on the offensive.
And this time, Uniswap is in the crosshairs.
What Happened?
Yesterday the leading decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) Uniswap received notice from the SEC that they will be pursuing an enforcement action.
According to Uniswap's COO and Chief Legal Officer, the content of the Wells notice received was focused on it acting as an unregistered securities broker and unregistered securities exchange.
While it's unclear that Uniswap's token $UNI is tied in to the notice, the market was understandably shaken with $UNI dropping 16% to $9.24 ($5.5B market cap).
What Are They Saying?
Uniswap's Chief Legal Officer Marvin Ammori doesn't seem too worried.
He stated that Uniswap doesn't meet the SEC's definition of an exchange and pointed to a recent ruling in the SEC's case against Coinbase where a judge ruled that Coinbase Wallet is not a broker as a good sign.
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams also took to X, confirming the news that they had received a Wells notices from the SEC.
His reaction - "just annoyed, disappointed, and ready to fight.”
He went on to say:
“I am confident that the products we offer are legal and that our work is on the right side of history. But it’s been clear for a while that rather than working to create clear, informed rules, the SEC has decided to focus on attacking long-time good actors like Uniswap and Coinbase. All while letting bad actors like FTX slip by."
A Uniswap blog post went even further, calling the SEC's actions "the latest political effort to target even the best actors building technology on blockchains.”
Why It Matters
For broader crypto, it probably doesn't.
The SEC has a terrible track record in these cases and it seems there is already historical precedent on Uniswap's side.
The market reaction to broader crypto prices is a signal that most arne't worried about a broad impact to crypto (all majors are green other than Uniswap).
Several centralized exchanges received enforcement actions in the past 1-2 years, including Binance, without major impact to broader crypto.
Other than builders fleeing the U.S.
That's the big impact. The current political regime is actively trying to force crypto innovation offshore.
All while its biggest institutions are piling into crypto via the BTC ETFs.
It's such a strange dichotomy.
Here's hoping the political winds will shift and crypto builders can feel comfortable in the U.S.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
- Bitcoin led NFT trading volume with $26M on the day (+36%); ETH was next with $22.5M (+24%) and then Solana with $12M (-2%)
- Runestone led the BTC NFT board again and jumped 10% 0.091 BTC; Rune Pups were next up reaching 0.095 and then Blob up another 30% to 0.066
- The NODE BRC-20 team airdropped Rune Nodes to all NodeMonkes holders, opening at 0.039 BTC floor (not formally affiliated with the team)
- The RSIC team launched a new dashboard at runecoin.io allowing users to track surplus rewards and tokens mined, while endorsing the Runes Collective for lottery ticket pooling
- ETH NFT leaders were mostly red with BAYC -1% to 12.14 ETH, Pudgy -4% to 11.8, MAYC -1% to 1.94 and Captains -3% to 3.34
- Mintify Genesis was a notable winner, jumping 73% to 0.16 ETH floor as they prepare to expand to Base; Milady popped 10% as well
- The CryptoPunks floor has fallen below 40 ETH (39.99) for the first time in months
- Solana NFTs were mostly green on the day; Mad Lads +8% at 138 SOL, Tensorians -2% at 18, Mutantmon +53% to 2.4 and Parcl +22% to 13.6
- Grant Yun announced a new edition of 250 NFTs to launch Solana art marketplace Exchange Art next week
- Bybit and Oracle Red Bull Racing are back with Velocity Pass 2.0, launching 900 Passes for sale on Friday at 10:00 a.m. ET
- Zora added a new feature allowing users to buy Mints with credit card or Apple Pay
- FeistyDAO acquired the "Keyboard Cat" 1/1 for 36 ETH ($126K) via Foundation, following the Dogwifhat 1/1 which sold for $4.3M
💰 Token, Airdrop & Points Tracker
Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:
- $PUPS soared 20% to a new ATH of $47 on Wednesday ($365M mc); its new beta play $NODE jumped 100% to $1.32
- Arcade teased a Base integration or interaction in a cryptic X post
- STEPN airdropped FSL points worth 100M $GMT (~$29M) to its community on Wednesday
- Kettle Finance recorded a $100k volume day for its new luxury watch trading and lending platform
- SharkyFi announced that Mad Lads holders will get a $SHARK airdrop but it does require reserving allocation at this site
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- Crypto majors are green this morning after a post-CPI dip; BTC +2.2% at $70,500; ETH +1.2% at $3,560; SOL +1.5% at $172
- Memecoin majors were green again following majors; DOGE +5%, WIF +7%, PEPE +2%, BODEN +6%
- Over $169M has been withdrawn from Solana defi protocol MarginFi (28% of its TVL) after the founder resigned in a heated Twitter (X) debacle
- Solend took advantage of the MarginFi exodus, stating it would airdrop to users who withdraw from MarginFI and deposit with them
- Arch debuted its Bitcoin-native application platform live on the Bitcoin mainnet, declaring it the first of its kind
- OhBabyGames teased a potential Open Beta launch on April 18
- Sui is building a handheld gaming device meant for web3
🚀 Memecoin Movers
- $CCC (+340%, $33M market cap, Base)
- $NODE (+100%, $27M market cap, Bitcoin)
- $TOOKER (+94%, $51M market cap, Solana)
- $SC (+50%, $135M market cap, Solana)
- $NUB (+45%, $75M market cap, Solana)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)
- Kawamii Teams (173%, 0.08 ETH Floor)
- Mintify Genesis (88%, 0.17 ETH)
- Milady Aura (43%, 0.17 ETH)
- Onlybots (34%, 0.12 ETH)
- Schizoposters (27%, 0.44 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is a very busy day of drop spanning several chains.
My personal highlight is Killer Acid making his Bitcoin debut with No Brainers, a selection of curated 1/1s of PFP characters in classic Killer Acid trippy style (priced at 0.1 BTC).
Runestone artist Leo Caillard is dropping The Block on Bitcoin too (0.015 BTC).
The Dew pass provides access to Polygon's top aggregator (Circle invested).
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
- $BLOCK (8:00 a.m. ET)
- Dew Origin Pass (10:00 a.m. ET)
- The Block (12:00 p.m. ET)
- Broken Printer (1:00 p.m. ET)
- Floor Icons Szn 2 Drop 10 (1:00 p.m. ET)
- Filigree (3:00 p.m. ET)
- No Brainers (3:00 p.m. ET)
Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
