Uniswap founder Hayden Adams stated that Sam Bankman-Fried paid a seven-figure sum for the Uniswap.com domain after the project's team declined to meet the original owners' price. Adams said the domain was then directed to a competing fork of the Uniswap protocol. Uniswap Labs later obtained the domain without payment through a World Intellectual Property Organization proceeding that found bad-faith registration and use.

Adams shared the account in a post on X dated September 20, 2026. He wrote that the original owners of Uniswap.com sought a seven-figure payment, which his team refused. According to Adams, Bankman-Fried then acquired the domain for a comparable amount and redirected it toward a fork of the protocol.

Adams described the possible motive as an attempt to flex or interfere with Uniswap. He provided no transaction documents, exact purchase price, or seller identity in the post. Multiple reports identified the fork in question as SushiSwap, a decentralized exchange launched as a near-clone of Uniswap's open-source code.

WIPO Proceeding and Transfer Order

Uniswap Labs, operating through Universal Navigation Inc., filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization on May 18, 2021, under case number D2021-1556. The domain Uniswap.com had been registered on July 30, 2000. According to a declaration from the respondent's legal representative, the respondent acquired it on April 7, 2021.

At the time of the complaint, the domain redirected visitors to SushiSwap. Contemporary accounts from May 2021 documented the redirect, though the identity of the then-owner was not publicly known. A SushiSwap contributor stated at the time that the SushiSwap team had not purchased the domain.

The WIPO panel reviewed screenshots and archived versions of the site. It determined that Uniswap Labs held registered trademark rights in UNISWAP, including a United States registration from October 2020 and an international registration from April 2021. The panel found the domain identical to the mark and concluded that the redirect to a competing platform did not constitute legitimate use. It created a risk of confusion about affiliation or endorsement by Uniswap Labs.

The respondent, identified as Registration Private, Domains By Proxy, LLC / Future XXX of Hong Kong and represented by Australian counsel, contested the claims. It argued that SushiSwap was an open-source derivative and that the domain had been acquired with awareness of the open-source protocol rather than the trademark holder. During the proceeding, the domain was changed to promote trade in sea urchin, known as "uni" in Japanese. The panel viewed this as an attempt to avoid liability and rejected the respondent's positions after reviewing evidence that the respondent had prior awareness of Uniswap Labs and regarded it as a competitor.

On September 3, 2021, the three-member panel ordered the domain transferred to Universal Navigation Inc. The decision under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy required no payment from Uniswap Labs to the respondent.

Connection to SushiSwap and Official Record Limits

Bankman-Fried had a documented role with SushiSwap in 2020. After the project's anonymous creator, known as Chef Nomi, withdrew tokens from a developer fund and triggered a governance crisis, control was transferred to Bankman-Fried. He oversaw a migration before the project moved to a multisignature structure. SushiSwap itself launched as a fork during the 2020 decentralized finance period and competed directly with Uniswap.

That history provides context for Adams' statement but does not independently confirm ownership of Uniswap.com. The published WIPO decision does not name Bankman-Fried as the purchaser, does not identify him with Future XXX, and contains no reference to a seven-figure transaction or any purchase price.

Uniswap.com now redirects to the official Uniswap application at app.uniswap.org. Uniswap Labs maintains trademark guidelines stating that third parties should not use UNISWAP, UNI, or related marks in domain names in ways that suggest false affiliation. The company lists Uniswap.org as its primary website and app.uniswap.org as its trading interface.

Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud related to the collapse of FTX. In 2026 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed his conviction, 25-year prison sentence, and approximately $11 billion forfeiture order. That case did not address the 2021 domain matter.

Adams' recent account presents the domain episode as an early example of competitive friction in decentralized exchange development. The WIPO record establishes the legal outcome and the finding of bad-faith use through the SushiSwap redirect, while leaving the specific purchaser identity and any associated payment outside the official documentation.