Uniswap founder Hayden Adams said Sam Bankman-Fried once bought the Uniswap.com domain for a seven-figure sum after Uniswap Labs declined to meet the original owner’s asking price.
Adams said in an X post on September 20 that the original owner had demanded a seven-figure payment for the domain, but Uniswap refused to pay. Bankman-Fried, the former FTX chief, later purchased the domain for a similar amount and directed it to a forked project, Adams said.
Adams wrote: “Fun fact, the og owners of app.uniswap.org wanted 7 figures, but we refused to pay that amount. So SBF bought it (for 7 figures) and pointed it to a fork – I guess to flex / mess with us. This malicious use of the domain was enough for our legal team to get it for free.” Adams did not post transaction records. In context, the remark refers to the Uniswap.com domain later recovered by Uniswap Labs; the “flex / mess with us” line is Adams’ opinion, not a finding from the later domain case.
The Uniswap founder added that the domain’s subsequent use became the basis for the company’s legal team to recover it without paying for the domain. Adams did not disclose the exact purchase price, the date of Bankman-Fried’s acquisition, or the specific legal process through which Uniswap recovered the domain.
WIPO case provides earlier record
The history is supported in part by a 2021 domain dispute handled by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
According to the WIPO ruling, Universal Navigation Inc., doing business as Uniswap Labs, filed complaint D2021-1556 over Uniswap.com on May 18, 2021. The domain had originally been registered on July 30, 2000, and was acquired by the respondent on April 7, 2021.
At the time of the proceeding, the domain had been redirected to a page on SushiSwap, a decentralized exchange that competed with Uniswap. WIPO said it found evidence that the respondent knew of Uniswap before acquiring the domain and had used the domain in a way that created a likelihood of confusion with Uniswap’s trademark.
The panel also rejected the respondent’s argument that the open-source nature of the Uniswap protocol gave it the right to use the Uniswap name as a domain. WIPO found that the domain was identical to Uniswap’s trademark and that the respondent did not have legitimate rights or interests in the domain.
The panel ultimately ordered the transfer of Uniswap.com to Uniswap Labs on September 3, 2021. The official decision is published as WIPO Case No. D2021-1556. The ruling does not state that Uniswap Labs paid the respondent for the domain.
The domain was redirected to SushiSwap
The domain’s redirect had already attracted attention in May 2021.
Uniswap.com was redirecting visitors to SushiSwap’s trading site at the time. The identity of the domain holder was not publicly clear, while SushiSwap contributor 0xMaki said the project had not purchased the domain.
WIPO later examined archived pages and confirmed that the domain had resolved to a SushiSwap subpage around the time Uniswap Labs filed its complaint. The panel found that the redirect was intended to create confusion with Uniswap’s trademark and attract users to a competing website.
The WIPO case identified the respondent as Registration Private, Domains By Proxy LLC and Future XXX of Hong Kong. The ruling does not identify the respondent as Bankman-Fried, so Adams’ September 20 statement is the source for the claim linking him to the seven-figure purchase.
No independent public record reviewed for this report confirms the buyer’s identity or the seven-figure price.
The exact amount paid for Uniswap.com and the details of the subsequent recovery remain undisclosed. The WIPO ruling confirms that the domain was transferred to Uniswap Labs following the dispute but does not provide details of the reported transaction.
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