Uniswap Wins Full Legal Victory as Judge Rules Open DeFi Code Not Liable for Scam Tokens

Uniswap secured a decisive court victory on March 2, 2026, when Judge Katherine Failla dismissed the Risley class action lawsuit with prejudice, ruling that creators of open smart contract code are not legally responsible for users trading scam tokens on the protocol. The case alleged that Uniswap Labs and founder Hayden Adams facilitated fraudulent tokens by building the marketplace, but the court found it "defies logic" to hold code writers liable for how others use permissionless infrastructure. Data show Uniswap has processed over $3.566 trillion in cumulative trading volume, with $67.671 billion in the last 30 days, around $2.039 billion in recent 24-hour volume, annual fees near $883 million, and total value locked of about $3.115 billion across multiple blockchains, including roughly $2.184 billion on Ethereum, $341 million on Base and $272 million on Arbitrum. The ruling allows the leading decentralized exchange to continue rolling out upgrades such as Version 4 hooks, expected 15% gas savings, and a fee mechanism that burns about 4 million UNI per year, while the UNI token was reported trading 3% higher day-on-day at press time.