Japanese brokerage SMBC Nikko Securities and blockchain engineering firm Nethermind have signed a memorandum of understanding with Uniswap Labs, Base and Nyx Foundation to build a Japan-focused DeFi gateway that embeds anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing and investor-protection controls directly into Uniswap v4 liquidity pools.

The partners set a completion target of mid-2027, according to an Oct. 2 joint announcement. Base will support deployment within its Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem. The agreement is a development pact, not a product launch, and no Gateway contracts have been deployed.

The technical approach centers on Uniswap v4 hooks — smart contracts that attach custom logic to individual liquidity pools. Nethermind described the proposed controls as operating "inside the liquidity pool," which places the compliance mechanism in the pool's code rather than at the gateway's user interface. That distinction matters for regulated institutions: controls enforced at the pool level apply to every interaction with the pool, regardless of which frontend a user accesses.

Extension of an existing collaboration

The Oct. 2 agreement builds on groundwork the two lead partners laid earlier this year. SMBC Nikko and Nethermind announced a research and prototyping collaboration in March and demonstrated a conceptual gateway at Yield Summit 2026. The new MOU adds three partners — Uniswap Labs, Base and Nyx Foundation — specifies Uniswap v4 hooks as the implementation standard and attaches a firm completion timeline.

The initiative targets Japanese investors providing liquidity to automated market makers. Its stated scope also includes AI-powered vaults, investor-facing interfaces and liquidity strategies covering stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.

The division of labor is explicit. SMBC Nikko will lead regulatory dialogue and contribute compliance, risk-modeling and portfolio-management expertise. Nethermind will handle engineering, AI integration and smart-contract security. Uniswap Labs will advise on protocol integration and liquidity deployment. Nyx Foundation, a Japan-based blockchain and AI research organization, will advise on market-making strategies and hook design.

Precedent in pool-level permissioning

Uniswap Labs already introduced Permissioned Pools on Uniswap v4 in July, a hook standard that checks an issuer-managed list of approved wallets on every swap and before a user creates a liquidity position. Those checks run at the protocol level rather than on a website, while the underlying Uniswap protocol remains permissionless.

The Gateway announcement does not commit to that particular standard. It leaves eligibility rules and the screening administrator unspecified. Those open questions will determine whether the final design resembles issuer-managed allowlists or a different compliance architecture, and they will likely figure in the partners' engagement with regulators.

The partners plan to share development progress with authorities including Japan's Financial Services Agency, explicitly framing the project as input for the country's evolving DeFi regulatory framework. For SMBC Nikko, the arrangement is a structured path toward offering regulated DeFi exposure to Japanese retail and institutional clients. For Uniswap Labs and Base, it represents another avenue for institutional liquidity on Ethereum Layer 2 infrastructure.

The mid-2027 completion target gives the partners roughly a three-year development window from their initial March collaboration, with regulatory feedback from the FSA likely to shape the Gateway's final eligibility and screening design before any contracts go live.