Uniswap founder Hayden Adams says Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) paid a seven-figure sum for the Uniswap.com domain after Uniswap Labs refused the original owner's asking price, only for the domain to be transferred to Uniswap through a legal dispute.
Adams disclosed the claim on X on September 20, 2026, stating that the original owners wanted seven figures but Uniswap declined. He said SBF then bought the domain and pointed it to a fork of Uniswap, suggesting the move may have been intended to “flex” or interfere with the team. Adams added that the malicious use was enough for Uniswap’s legal team to obtain the domain “for free.”
Official records confirm part of the story. In Universal Navigation Inc. d/b/a Uniswap Labs v. Registration Private, Domains By Proxy, LLC / Future XXX, WIPO Case No. D2021-1556, a three-member panel found that Uniswap.com had been registered and used in bad faith. The domain was originally registered in July 2000, but the respondent acquired it on April 7, 2021. Uniswap Labs filed its complaint in May 2021. Evidence showed visitors to Uniswap.com were redirected to a page on SushiSwap, an open-source derivative of the Uniswap protocol.
The WIPO panel found that Uniswap Labs held registered trademark rights to UNISWAP and that the open-source nature of the underlying software did not justify using the trademark as a domain name. The panel concluded the redirect created a risk of implied affiliation and did not represent a bona fide use of the domain. On September 3, 2021, WIPO ordered Uniswap.com transferred to Uniswap Labs.
However, the official WIPO record does not identify Bankman-Fried as the buyer. The respondent is listed as Registration Private, Domains By Proxy, LLC / Future XXX, based in Hong Kong, and no purchase price is disclosed. Adams has not published transaction documents, leaving the claim about SBF’s involvement and the seven-figure price dependent on his account. Bankman-Fried did have a prior connection to SushiSwap, having temporarily taken control of the project in September 2020, but that relationship does not independently prove the domain purchase.
Uniswap.com now redirects to Uniswap’s official application at app.uniswap.org. If Adams’ account is accurate, Bankman-Fried spent at least $1 million on a domain Uniswap had declined to buy, before a trademark dispute resulted in its transfer to Uniswap Labs.
