The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ruled that the Uniswap.com domain was registered and used in bad faith, ordering its transfer to Uniswap Labs. Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, claimed that Sam Bankman-Fried paid a seven-figure sum for the domain after Uniswap Labs had rejected the original owner’s asking price. Bankman-Fried redirected the domain to a Uniswap fork. The domain was acquired in April 2021, after Uniswap secured trademark rights. WIPO found the respondent knew of Uniswap and considered it a rival. The decision does not directly name Bankman-Fried.
Hayden Adams has claimed that Sam Bankman-Fried paid seven figures for the Uniswap.com domain. Adams said Uniswap Labs had earlier rejected the original owner’s seven-figure asking price.
According to Adams, Bankman-Fried later acquired the domain and redirected it to a Uniswap fork. He described the move as a way to “flex” or mess with the company. The domain later became part of a WIPO dispute.
WIPO had previously found that Uniswap.com was used in bad faith. Uniswap Labs filed its complaint on May 18, 2021 against the registered holder.
The domain had originally been registered on July 30, 2000. The respondent’s legal representative said it acquired the domain on April 7, 2021, after the company had already secured trademark rights for UNISWAP.
At the time of the case, the domain was redirecting visitors to a page on SushiSwap, which the panel identified as operating in the same financial market as Uniswap. The respondent later changed the domain to a website promoting the trade of sea urchin, after the complaint was filed.
The respondent denied having prior knowledge of Uniswap Labs. WIPO rejected those arguments, finding that the respondent had been aware of the company before acquiring the domain and that evidence showed it considered the company a rival.
WIPO verified via the Wayback Machine that Uniswap.com had redirected visitors to a SushiSwap page around the time the complaint was filed. The panel concluded that the use of the domain created a likelihood of confusion with Uniswap Labs’ trademark and did not qualify as a “legitimate” use, and that the domain had been acquired and used in “bad faith.”
Four months later, WIPO ordered the domain to be transferred to Uniswap Labs. Importantly, the decision does not identify the disgraced FTX founder as the respondent or establish that he acquired the domain.
SushiSwap had originally launched as a fork of Uniswap during the rapid DeFi growth in 2020. Bankman-Fried was already involved with it several months before the Uniswap.com dispute.
In September 2020, its creator, Chef Nomi, handed control of the project to Bankman-Fried during a governance crisis after withdrawing tokens from the project’s developer fund. Bankman-Fried then helped oversee SushiSwap’s migration before control gradually shifted to a multisignature setup.
