How Uniswap Won a Seven-Figure Domain Without Buying It

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• Hayden Adams says Sam Bankman-Fried bought Uniswap.com for seven figures after Uniswap declined the seller’s price.
• A 2021 WIPO case confirmed the domain was used to redirect traffic to SushiSwap and ordered its transfer to Uniswap Labs.
• The legal record does not identify Bankman-Fried as the buyer, leaving that part of the story dependent on Adams’ account.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams says Sam Bankman-Fried paid seven figures for Uniswap.com after the Uniswap team refused to meet the original owner’s asking price.

Adams disclosed the story in a September 20 post on X, saying the domain was subsequently pointed toward a fork of Uniswap. He suggested Bankman-Fried may have done so to “flex” or interfere with the team, though Adams framed that motive as his own speculation.

Fun fact, the og owners of https://t.co/bRvDs5brca 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 https://t.co/ZV0yJhdvZg

— Hayden Adams 🦄 (@haydenzadams) September 20, 2026

What happened to the domain afterward is documented in an official legal record. 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 and ordered it transferred to Uniswap Labs.

Why Uniswap.com Ended Up at WIPO

The domain itself is much older than the decentralized exchange. Uniswap.com was first registered in July 2000, while the respondent in the WIPO case acquired it on April 7, 2021. Uniswap Labs filed its complaint the following month.

The dispute centered on how the new owner used the domain.

Evidence submitted by Uniswap showed that visitors were redirected to a page on SushiSwap, an open-source derivative of the Uniswap protocol. The respondent disputed whether the redirect had been sufficiently established and argued that SushiSwap should not be considered a competitor because both protocols used open-source software.

The WIPO panel rejected that reasoning. It found that Uniswap Labs held registered rights to the UNISWAP trademark and that the open-source nature of the underlying software did not give another party the right to use that trademark as a domain name.

The panel also concluded that Uniswap.com carried a high risk of implied affiliation and that redirecting users toward a competitor did not constitute a bona fide use of the domain.

The Legal Record Does Not Identify SBF

Adams’ new account fills in a part of the story that the WIPO decision does not.

The official case names the respondent as Registration Private, Domains By Proxy, LLC / Future XXX, with Future XXX listed in Hong Kong. The decision does not name Bankman-Fried as the purchaser, disclose how much was paid for Uniswap.com or establish that he controlled the respondent.

Adams has not publicly provided transaction documents supporting the purchase claim, according to current reporting. His statement is therefore the source for both Bankman-Fried’s alleged involvement and the seven-figure price.

The wording of the price is also worth preserving. Adams said “7 figures,” meaning at least $1 million, but did not disclose an exact amount. Describing the transaction as precisely $1 million would go beyond the available evidence.

Why WIPO Ordered the Domain Transferred

Under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, Uniswap Labs needed to establish three elements: that the domain was identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which it held rights, that the respondent lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain, and that it had been registered and used in bad faith.

The panel found that all three requirements were satisfied.

Of particular importance was the timing. Although Uniswap.com had existed since 2000, WIPO considered when the current respondent acquired it in 2021 when assessing bad faith. By then, Uniswap Labs already held registered trademark rights and the protocol was established in the crypto market.

The panel also pointed to evidence that the respondent operated in the blockchain sector and was aware of Uniswap. Combined with the SushiSwap redirect, it concluded that the domain had been deliberately used to create confusion with the Uniswap trademark.

On September 3, 2021, WIPO ordered Uniswap.com transferred to Uniswap Labs.

Uniswap Avoided Paying the Domain Holder

Adams characterized the outcome by saying Uniswap’s legal team ultimately obtained the domain “for free.”

More precisely, Uniswap secured the domain through the UDRP proceeding instead of purchasing it from its holder. The process would still have involved administrative and potentially legal costs, but the WIPO decision required the holder to transfer the domain rather than negotiate a sale.

That distinction makes the outcome particularly unusual given Adams’ new account. If his claim is accurate, Bankman-Fried spent at least $1 million acquiring a domain that Uniswap had previously declined to buy, only for a subsequent trademark dispute to result in the domain being transferred to Uniswap Labs.

The legal outcome is documented by WIPO; Bankman-Fried’s role in the purchase is not. That separation between the public record and Adams’ newly disclosed account remains the key qualification to the story.