Uniswap spent a seven-figure sum to acquire the domain name Uniswap.com
Hayden Adams claims that the original owners of Uniswap.com demanded a seven-figure price, Uniswap refused to pay it, and Sam Bankman-Fried subsequently purchased the domain name for a seven-figure sum.
9/21/20264 min read
Why do acquisitions help with recovery?
The most interesting part of the story is a legal mechanism obscured by this anecdote. Uniswap.com was first registered on July 30, 2000, nearly two decades before Adams created the Uniswap protocol. A domain name registered in 2000 could not be registered with malicious intent against a trademark that didn't yet exist. That's why Uniswap had no practical legal avenue to reclaim the domain name from its original owner and faced direct negotiations over price, which they refused.
The domain name was transferred on April 7, 2021, according to a statement from the defendant's legal representative. UDRP boards typically consider the transfer to a new owner as a new registration intended to assess bad conduct. Since that date, the relevant question is no longer the intention of the 2000 registrant, but rather what the 2021 buyer knew and did.
The panel's rulings were unfavorable to the defendant. The court found credible evidence that the defendant knew about Uniswap Labs before purchasing the domain name and considered it a competitor, noting that the defendant failed to address evidence contradicting their earlier claim that they were unaware of Uniswap Labs. The court found that the redirection to SushiSwap intentionally created confusion about whether Uniswap Labs was affiliated with or sponsored the destination, that the domain name posed a high risk of implicit affiliation, and that redirecting users to a competitor did not constitute good faith use.
Simply put, if Adams' testimony is accurate, the multi-million dollar purchase is what turned a domain name Uniswap didn't own into one they could seize. A buyer who simply held the domain passively could have kept it. Acquiring the domain knowing about Uniswap and targeting a direct competitor created a lack of goodwill that the original registration could never have generated.
The setting of SushiSwap
The plant in question is SushiSwap, noted in WIPO records although Adams did not name it. SushiSwap launched in August 2020 as a development fork from Uniswap's source code and aimed to siphon liquidity from Uniswap by rewarding Uniswap's liquidity providers when they switched over, a tactic known as a "vampire attack". In September 2020, during a governance crisis following the anonymous founder Chef Nomi's withdrawal of tokens from the project's development fund, control of SushiSwap was transferred to Bankman-Fried. He helped oversee the protocol's liquidity migration process before control was transferred to a multi-signature structure.
The documented relationship between Bankman-Fried and SushiSwap predates the April 2021 domain acquisition by approximately seven months, making Adams' account plausible in terms of motive and timing. The defendant's Hong Kong listing also fits within this period, as FTX was headquartered in Hong Kong until its relocation to the Bahamas in late 2021. Neither of these points proves Bankman-Fried was the buyer. They are merely factual coincidences, not evidence.
The meaning of the phrase "Free"
Adams' statement that Uniswap acquired the domain name "for free" is correct in one respect, but inaccurate in another. Uniswap did not pay a purchase price. The UDRP process requires the domain owner to transfer ownership rather than negotiate a purchase, which is the key point. However, a UDRP claim incurs administrative fees, and pursuing it often requires legal counsel. The published decision does not specify how much Uniswap Labs spent. "Free" here means no acquisition fee, not that no fee was paid.
The asymmetry remains very evident. According to Adams, one party spent at least $1 million on a domain name and lost it within months through an administrative process that the other party pursued for only a fraction of that amount.
Assessment and Conclusion
This story comes at a time when both names are making headlines for very different reasons. Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison sentence after being convicted of fraud in November 2023, with an order to forfeit $11 billion worth of assets. Meanwhile, Uniswap has surged after the SEC's September 17 Innovation Exemption decision paved the way for licensed automated market makers to trade US crypto stocks, with UNI reportedly rising 28% following the news.
This contrast makes the story compelling. The protocol that SushiSwap, backed by SBF, attempted to drain in 2020 is now at the heart of a legal opportunity for an on-chain equity transaction, while the man accused of paying millions of dollars to redirect its traffic is in federal prison. It's a compelling story. The noteworthy part, the WIPO ruling, is the one with lasting significance: a clear illustration of how acquiring a disputed trademark knowing about a competitor's trademark can grant that competitor legal rights they never had before.
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Compiled and analyzed by HCCVenture
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