Uniswap nears $3 billion in daily trading volume despite Wells notice and fee hike

Uniswap's (UNI) price witnessed a double-fold crash in the past week after it received a Wells notice from the SEC and later due to the general crypto market crash over the weekend. In the past week, UNI has decreased more than 38%.

Read more: SEC serves DeFi giant Uniswap with Wells notice as project vows to fight

Uniswap sees increased volume regardless of increased fees

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a Wells notice to Uniswap Labs, indicating it will take potential legal action against the decentralized exchange. As confirmed in a series of posts by Uniswap Labs, the Wells notice is based on accusations that Uniswap operated as an unregistered exchange.

However, its founder, Hayden Adams, responded that Uniswap was ready to fight, stating his disappointment with the Commission.

Also read: UNI price fills up a triangle as Uniswap fee switch proposal starts

Shortly after the Wells notice, people began to realize that Uniswap Labs raised its fees from $0.15 to $0.25 for swaps carried out through its UI and wallet interface. Speculation is that the fee increase is to help them prepare for their potential legal battle against the SEC, and many crypto community members have expressed support for the move. However, it has also invited criticism from some folks in the market.

However, there are doubts if Uniswap could sustain the increased fee structure in the long term, especially as some other DEXs are reducing their fees to attract users. Unique traders on the platform dropped from 285,000 on April 9—before the new fee structure—to around 241,000 on Sunday.

Uniswap's daily trading volume has also surged recently, reaching $2.92 billion on Monday. This shows that traders are still using the platform regardless of the SEC's notice. On April 5, it hit a milestone of $2 trillion in cumulative volume.

Read more: UNI price drops over 10% as Uniswap DEX switches on their fee distribution incentive

In spite of the developments, Uniswap will unlock around 8.33 million UNI—about 1.39% of its market cap—on Tuesday.
UNI is trading at $7.32, down 3.1% on Monday.