The legal victory achieved by Uniswap Labs is truly a significant milestone. The Manhattan federal court dismissed all remaining state law claims in the lawsuit filed against Hayden Adams and the company. The class action case is completely closed.

Let me briefly summarize what happened. In 2022, investors filed a lawsuit claiming they lost money by trading fake tokens through the Uniswap protocol. Among the main claimants was Nessa Risley. The plaintiffs argued that Uniswap Labs facilitated and enabled securities sales without registration by designing, promoting, and collecting fees for the decentralized exchange, thus allowing fraud.

But the court did not accept this. Judge Katherine Polk Failla stated that Uniswap is not responsible for aiding and abetting fraud. The court’s reasoning was simple: Uniswap did not have actual knowledge of specific frauds. General warnings on social media were not enough, and the actions did not show that the protocol was aware of the relevant tokens.

Another important point is this: merely providing a platform does not constitute serious assistance in fraud. The court compared this to traditional exchanges. Providing access to markets where malicious actors operate does not mean participating in fraud. The identities of token issuers were already unknown, and the losses stemmed from their false statements.

Consumer protection claims also failed. The court said Uniswap Labs did not make any materially misleading statements. Blog posts and terms of service had already warned users. The plaintiffs also failed to present a convincing claim regarding unjust enrichment. The protocol’s fee key was never activated.

Hayden Adams wrote on X, “If you write open-source smart contract code and it is used by scammers, the responsible parties are not the open-source developers but the scammers.” Uniswap Foundation General Counsel Brian Nistler also stated, “Federal charges had previously been dismissed, and today, various state claims were also dismissed.”

This ruling clearly demonstrates that designing decentralized infrastructure is not inherently the same as orchestrating fraud. It sets an important legal precedent for DeFi developers. It is not yet clear whether the plaintiffs will file another appeal, but after numerous amendments and appeals, the legal process is expected to be relatively short.