German authorities launch investigation into the activities of Uniswap

This is due to the advertising of the exchange’s crypto wallet, which has not been approved by the local regulator

10.03.2023 - 12:15

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2 min

What’s new? Representatives of Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) have launched an investigation into the decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap, according to the local outlet FinanceFWD. This came after the company announced the launch of a mobile crypto wallet on March 5 and offered Germans early access. Since providers in Germany are not allowed to sell financial services without the permission of the regulator, BaFin considered it a violation of the law.

FinanceFWD’s material

What else is known about the situation? The BaFin press service explained that in order to advertise financial services, a provider must have at least one operator involved in providing them. Since operations on DEX are carried out without intermediaries and there is no system operator, it is impossible to establish compliance with the rules of the market in Germany. “BaFin is at the beginning of its investigation,” the agency said.

What is known about Uniswap? It is a protocol for the exchange of cryptocurrencies, created based on Ethereum in 2018. It uses the native token UNI to provide liquidity. As of March 10, 10:55 UTC, the asset ranks 19th in the cryptocurrency ranking with a capitalization of $4,11 billion and is trading at $6,72, having gained 10,05% in 24 hours.

Last November, Uniswap became the second-largest platform by daily trading volume of ETH, surpassing centralized exchange (CEX) Coinbase. In late January, the Uniswap community approved a proposal to roll out the project on Binance’s BNB Chain. In February, Uniswap added the ability to buy NFTs with any ERC-20 assets.

Earlier, BaFin allowed the possibility of recognizing NFTs as securities. Representatives of the regulator noted that the use of blockchain-based tokens denoting ownership of a digital asset does not make them an investment instrument, but some NFTs may fall under financial regulations in the future.

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