Uniswap Introduces Token Censorship On its Front-End Due to 'Regulatory' Reasons, Protocol Remains Decentralized as Ever

A total of 129 tokens, synthetic stocks, synthetic currencies, synthetic commodities, inverse derivatives, options, index products, yield-generating tokens; has been removed from the leading decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap, announced Uniswap Labs, a software studio that contributes to the protocol. The delisting has been done in response to “the evolving regulatory landscape.” These tokens include the likes of Gold Tether (XAUT), Grup Cat, Opyn cDai Insurance, Zelda Spring Nuts Cash, multiple Mirrored stock tokens, and several Synth cryptos and Synth Inverse cryptos. They represent a “very small” portion of the overall volume on the Uniswap Protocol, it said in the announcement. The portal app.uniswap.org is an open-source interface for reliable interaction with the Uniswap Protocol. Unlike the interface, the Uniswap Protocol is a set of autonomous, decentralized, and immutable smart contracts which provide unrestricted access to anyone with an Internet connection, clarified the team. As Banteg of Yearn Finance noted, “Uniswap has introduced token censorship on the main UI.” It is the interface that is restricting the access to particular tokens, which is “consistent with actions taken by other DeFi interfaces” and has no impact on Uniswap Interface code or other portals or locally-run instances used to access the Protocol. Users can basically still trade these affected assets via contracts, decentralized interfaces, or aggregators. The crypto community didn’t take this news well, calling it a bad move. Some in the community wondered about the lack of UNI governance token holders’ input in the decision and the reason behind removing these particular coins, while others called for its demise. “People can't comprehend the difference between http://uniswap.org (a frontend owned by a company) and a protocol (a series of smart contracts hosted on ethereum) and cannot see this is regulator enforced,” commented influencer CryptoCobain who hosts UpOnly podcast. https://twitter.com/loomdart/status/1418708501673750530 “There's no censorship at the contract level that's the point of DeFi frontends are just a convenience for users. In a couple of years, only community run frontends will be around,” said a DeFi enthusiast. Moving forward, Uniswap Labs said they would continue to develop products and contribute to the Uniswap Protocol in accordance with the broader DeFi industry’s values, that is, safe, transparent, and robust financial infrastructure to empower users around the world.