Uniswap Riles Up Users With Plan to Share Wallet Addresses

Uniswap, the top decentralized exchange by trade volume, is taking flak after its new privacy policy revealed on Nov. 17 that Uniswap Labs may share wallet addresses with third parties in the event of regulatory or legal proceedings.

“We want to be crystal clear about what data we’re protecting and how we use any data we collect,” Uniswap Labs said in a blog post. “Transparency is key. We never want our users to be surprised.”

Compliance Measures

The document outlines circumstances in which user information may be shared with third parties, including “litigation, regulatory proceedings, compliance measures, and when compelled by subpoena, court order, or other legal procedure[s].”

Uniswap Labs may also share wallet addresses and other information with infrastructure companies such as Infura and Cloudflare, and blockchain analytics providers to detect and prevent financial crime.

Unhappy

Uniswap stressed that it does not collect or store personal data such as users’ names, home addresses, date of birth, email addresses, or IP addresses. “Uniswap does not share your data with any third parties for marketing purposes,” it added.

Even so, many users are unhappy with Uniswap’s new privacy practices.

“Uniswap is simultaneously the most decentralized DeFi application… and also the most centralized and corrupting corporation when it comes to crypto lobbying,” said Chris Blec, a MakerDAO governance delegate.

Yoda Research, a social media influencer, said Uniswap is heading down a “dark path” by sharing data with regulators after banning wallets associated with Tornado Cash from using its front-end interface. “Not the way of DeFi it is,” Yoda Research tweeted. “Read the ‘Privacy’ Policy and stop using it.”

In August, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Tornado Cash, a popular crypto mixing protocol on the Ethereum network. The move made it illegal for U.S. entities to interact with smart contracts associated with Tornado Cash, prompting many teams hosting interfaces for DeFi protocols to blacklist the sanctioned addresses.

Fork the Code

But other Uniswap users have a more pragmatic take on the exchange’s data-sharing policies.

“I hate to break it to you but this is what adoption looks like,” said Magicdhz. “The way I read this is, if authorities have any reason to investigate your activities… Uniswap will comply. If you don’t like Uniswap’s privacy terms, you can fork the code.”

Uniswap Labs also said it may share “data” to investigate or protect against fraudulent or illegal activity and security risks. It did not specify what type of data will be shared within this context.

“We may transfer or share data to another entity in the event of a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, dissolution, reorganization, asset or stock sale, or other business transaction,” it added.

Uniswap also said it recently launched a “reverse proxy server” that prevents third-party tools from reading user data.