U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating decentralized exchange developer Uniswap Labs, according to a Wall Street Journal report Friday. The SEC is reportedly obtaining information about how investors use the exchange and how it is marketed to people. Uniswap is the Ethereum blockchain's biggest decentralized exchange by trading volume.

Although it still remains unclear exactly what the SEC wants to know about Uniswap, the report is a sign of the markets regulator's intent to wield greater oversight of decentralized finance (DeFi), which SEC Chairman Gary Gensler suggested in recent comments about DeFi projects' financial incentives. The SEC does not seem to have alleged any wrongdoing by Uniswap at this time. The SEC declined to comment, and Uniswap Labs said it will cooperate with the regulator's civil inquiry.

Here is the rest of the week in review:

China said it has completed a crackdown on cryptocurrency transactions. The People's Bank of China asserted in its 2021 Financial Stability Report that it has 'rectified" virtual currency transactions and returned supervision to normal. The PBOC has urged banks and financial services providers to stay away from virtual currencies. The report included crypto along with other fintech activities of concern under increasing regulatory pressure, including peer-to-peer lending, online asset management, and crowdfunding capital. The PBOC and other Chinese authorities have been cracking down on crypto firms since May, enforcing its anti-crypto stance that began in 2013. The State Council first called for a crackdown on mining, and local and provincial authorities followed suit to take major mining hubs offline. Chinese authorities and industry associations have also warned against conducting or enabling virtual currency transactions and trading.

Offchain Labs said it has raised a $100 million Series B funding round that boosts its new valuation to $1.2 billion. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the latest round, with participation from new investors Polychain Capital, Ribbit Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Pantera Capital, Alameda Research, and billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Cofounder and CEO Steven Goldfeder said: "There's just so much more demand than there is supply on Ethereum." As the Ethereum blockchain has seen its popularity explode in the past year resulting in slower transaction speeds and higher fees, Offchain Labs has been creating a scaling solution called Arbitrum One that has already signed up 350 developer teams. Founded at Princeton University in 2015, the startup is ready to publicly launch its Arbitrum One mainnet. Arbitrum's main advantage is its smooth compatibility with decentralized applications that run on the Ethereum network.

Crypto prices rose to $2.33 trillion this week amid the continuing rally. For the majors, Solana (SOL), Polkadot (DOT), and Ether (ETH) surged, and all except stablecoins ended in the green. In the top 100, the biggest losers were Tezos (XTZ), down 8.4%, down PancakeSwap (CAKE), down 3.7%, and Klaytn (KLAY), down 1.8%. The biggest gainers were Fantom (FTM), up a whopping 118%, IOTA, up 75%, and Filecoin (FIL), up 60%. Next week traders will see if Bitcoin can stay above $50,000 and if Ether can break the $4,000 level.

The author owns a small amount of BTC.