THE uniswap, one of the most popular decentralized exchanges in the cryptocurrency market, has started taking actions against addresses that are linked to suspicious activity, blocking these users from the platform. Despite being common on centralized platforms, this action can worry many who are in the decentralized market. THE Uniswap with TRM Labs, will start investigating all addresses that may be using the decentralized platform to carry out any kind of illicit activity. Addresses that are determined to participate in such activities may be blocked. More specifically, all wallet addresses that belong to or are associated with clearly illegal activities such as: sanctions evasion, financing of terrorist activities, theft of funds or transfer of hacked values, ransomware activities, human trafficking activities and material linked to abuse child will be blocked. In practice, TRM Labs will combine blockchain data with information about investigations carried out by authorities around the world about malicious, illegal or major crimes activities. Through this information, TRM will try to trace the addresses and wallets involved in different types of investigations, sending UniSwap the relationship of these addresses with the crimes and the broker will then block the service. According to the broker, this new policy aims to prevent people linked to crimes from using the platform (and consequently causing problems with authorities around the world).
“Uniswap Labs policy is to prevent people involved in illegal activities from using our app. We remain committed to the idea of developing products that provide a robust, transparent and secure financial infrastructure that can empower everyone around the world.”
Despite the blocking of accounts, the broker said that all actions are taken as a precaution and that will not be reported to the police.
When trying to do any type of activity related to a suspicious address, the platform warns that:
“This address is blocked in the Uniswap Labs interface because it may be associated with one or more blocked activities.”
In the event of a possible error, the address can be unblocked by speaking directly to the broker’s support via emails.
“Decentralized”
The problem with this is that if Uniswap has the power to block addresses from the decision of its central team, then the platform is centralized to a certain level, which is not the DeFi proposal that attracts so many users who want to escape the centralization. Immediately, this caused many to begin to express discontent with the platform’s decision.
“I highly recommend people not to use Uniswap.”
I strongly advise against using uniswap pic.twitter.com/GFXN1EP87W
— 0x9fd (@0x9fd) April 22, 2022
It is possible that in the short and medium term this will affect the trust users have with the decentralized exchange because it is not that decentralized. Many may be concerned that if they can simply block a suspicious address, the next step may be to block addresses that are not linked to illegal activities but may be facing different types of sanctions. The need to worry about security is real and helps to legitimize the broker before traditional authorities, however, it can be a great disadvantage for those who already seek the decentralized market to escape this traditionality.
