New Uniswap wallet is not available in Apple’s App Store

Uniswap’s new crypto wallet is not in the App Store. Courtesy of Uniswap

Uniswap Labs, the company associated with popular decentralized crypto exchange Uniswap, announced the launch of its own self-storage wallet on Friday. The news is important because Uniswap’s trading platform is probably the most well-known brand in DeFi and is used by millions of investors to trade one form of crypto for another.

Announcing the wallet at the EthDenver conference, Uniswap highlighted the wallet’s ability to seamlessly switch between various Ethereum networks, including Polygon and Optimism. The wallet also has tools to discover prices and monitor trends, and to follow the trading activity of other Uniswap wallet users.

In an interview with Fortune, lead designer Cal Capuozzo said that Uniswap had made the wallet as accessible and intuitive as possible. He explained that this process involved learning from the help requests users had posted when trying to connect other wallets, including MetaMask, to Uniswap’s platform.

The new Uniswap wallet also includes a feature to store the seed phrase – a secret password usually made up of 12 or 16 random words – in Apple’s iCloud. The feature is opt-in, which will appease crypto-privacy hawks who caution against sharing one’s seed phrase with anyone, but is likely to prove popular with users who prefer convenience.

Ironically, despite the iCloud feature, the wallet will remain largely inaccessible since Apple refuses to give Uniswap permission to add it to the company’s App Store. In a blog post, Uniswap expressed surprise at Apple’s decision.

“We have addressed your concerns, answered all questions and reiterated that we are 100% compliant with your specifications. Other self-deposit exchange wallets have been approved, but Apple won’t green light our launch and we don’t know why . We’re stuck in limbo,” Uniswap wrote.

Apple has been wary of crypto apps lately and years ago blocked Coinbase and other services that offered trading. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its refusal to approve Uniswap’s wallet, but the decision may be linked to recent government scrutiny of crypto – although some may also see the move as part of a strategy to protect its own growing payments empire .

The Uniswap wallet is currently not available on Android platforms. For now, those determined to use it must ask permission from the company, then operate it through Apple’s trial software platform known as TestFlight.