Uniswap V4 Hooks Found to be Malicious, 0x Criticizes Aggregator Design
The decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 0x has published research that claims Uniswap v4 hooks are a mistake. According to 0x, 54.2% of the 84,163 hooks analyzed were malicious, meaning they quoted one price but settled another. This can result in trades delivering as much as 50% less at execution than the amount quoted to the user.
Uniswap's founder Hayden Adams responded that it was a 'skill issue', stating that routers should not send orders to bad hooks and pointing developers to Uniswap's API, which aggregates external liquidity without added fees. Adams also compared the complaint to saying 'Ethereum is bad because you can make malicious smart contracts.'
0x analyzed hooks across six chains using static analysis, dynamic analysis, and observation of settled trades. As of September 11, it classified 19.4% as safe, 54.2% as malicious, and 26.4% as likely malicious. Trades routed through malicious v4 pools delivered 'as much as 50% less at execution than the amount quoted to the user', according to the post.