Trading in Uniswap’s UNI token has surged on renewed investor interest, following a pair of developments tied to BlackRock and a US court ruling that triggered a sharply positive market reaction.
UNI Trading Volume Surges on BlackRock Investment, Court Win
11 February 2026 - 21:34 CET
By Ana Pereira
UNI trading volume jumped 450% in 24 hours to more than $864mn as at 20:30 UTC on 11 Feb, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
The token climbed as much as 35% during the period amid heightened volatility before paring gains to trade 2-3% higher near the close of the European day.
The spike in activity followed an announcement that asset management giant BlackRock disclosed "a strategic investment" within the Uniswap ecosystem, which came alongside a legal victory for its core developer Uniswap Labs in a patent infringement dispute.
What is Uniswap?
Uniswap is a decentralized exchange built on the Ethereum blockchain. It allows users to swap tokens through automated liquidity pools instead of centralized intermediaries.
The UNI token governs the protocol. Despite the rebound, UNI remains down about 63% over the past year, while its market capitalization stands near $2.2bn.
BlackRock’s BUIDL on DeFi
The rally followed an announcement from Uniswap Labs that tokenized shares of BlackRock’s BUIDL fund will become available in decentralized finance markets.
The fund, issued onchain via tokenization platform Securitize, represents blockchain-based shares in a BlackRock money market vehicle backed by US Treasuries.
Under the new setup, eligible holders of the tokenized fund will be able to deploy those tokens into decentralized liquidity pools and interact with DeFi applications, rather than holding them passively through traditional channels.
"This is the unlock we've been working toward: bringing the trust and regulatory standards of traditional finance to the speed and openness for which DeFi is known," said Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize.
Court dismisses patent claims
In a separate development, Uniswap Labs secured a dismissal in a patent infringement lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, according to court documents.
The case, brought by BProtocol Foundation and LocalCoin Ltd., accused Uniswap’s developer of infringing two patents covering automated market maker pricing mechanisms, the core model that powers decentralized exchanges like Uniswap.
In a 10 Feb ruling, the court found the patents invalid under Section 101 of US patent law, holding that the claims were directed to abstract ideas, including currency exchange and price calculations implemented on existing blockchain infrastructure.
The judge also said the plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege that Uniswap’s protocol incorporated the specific "reserve ratio constant" required by the patents.
The dismissal removes a legal challenge to the pricing model underlying decentralized exchanges and reduces the legal uncertainty that had lingered over the protocol’s design.
