Bankman-Fried May Have Spent Seven Figures on Uniswap.com
Uniswap's struggles for control over its own domain have come to light after a 2021 WIPO case revealed that Uniswap.com was used to redirect traffic to SushiSwap, an open-source derivative of the Uniswap protocol. The panel found that Uniswap Labs held registered rights to the UNISWAP trademark and that the respondent had registered and used the domain in bad faith.
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams claims that Sam Bankman-Fried paid seven figures for Uniswap.com, but this part of the story is not documented in the WIPO decision. According to Adams, Bankman-Fried bought the domain after Uniswap declined the seller's price, and then pointed it toward a fork of Uniswap.
The WIPO panel found that Uniswap Labs had established three elements required for the domain transfer: the domain was identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which they held rights, the respondent lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain, and it had been registered and used in bad faith. The panel ordered Uniswap.com transferred to Uniswap Labs on September 3, 2021.