Investors failed to establish Uniswap’s involvement in the fraud., 2026/03/03 13:34:07

A federal court in Manhattan has dismissed a class-action lawsuit against the decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap concerning the trading of tokens created by fraudsters. According to Judge Katherine Polk Failla’s ruling, the plaintiffs are prohibited from filing any similar lawsuits against this platform.

The court determined that Uniswap cannot be held liable for the illicit actions of unknown token issuers trading on its platform. The plaintiffs were unable to convincingly demonstrate that Uniswap staff were aware of the fraud and facilitated the crime, as stated in the ruling. The court concluded that the exchange was providing standard, entirely legal services, and it cannot be held accountable for the misuse of its platform by malicious actors.   

 “Merely creating a platform where fraud can occur is not the same as actively facilitating a crime. This argument is flawed for the same reasons that a bank is not considered complicit in money laundering if a criminal uses its accounts,” the ruling states.

This marks the second attempt by a group of investors led by Nessa Risley to take legal action against Uniswap. These same plaintiffs argued that the platform allowed for schemes such as rug pulls (a sudden withdrawal of funds by project developers leading to a token’s price collapse) and pump and dump (artificially inflating an asset’s price followed by mass selling). 

The legal battle has spanned four years: the plaintiffs first filed a lawsuit against Uniswap and venture firms Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz, and Union Square Ventures in April 2022. At that time, the investors accused the defendants of violating securities laws. The lawsuit was dismissed in August 2023, and this decision was later upheld on appeal.