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Weekend Wrap: Uniswap dev sacked for alleged rug, Steadefi hacker goes mixing and more

Uniswap developer AzFlin has admitted to creating the FRENS token but has argued what he did doesn't constitute a rug pull.

Uniswap dev loses job, was it worth it?

A Uniswap developer known as “AzFlin” has been sacked by the founder of Uniswap Labs, Hayden Adams, for allegedly creating a memecoin and rug pulling it a few hours later for 14 wrapped-Ether (wETH), worth $25,800.

It is understood that AzFlin developed and deployed FrensTech token (FRENS) on Coinbase’s new layer 2 blockchain Base on Aug 12 before selling the tokens raised from the liquidity shortly after.

Adams publicly confirmed the sacking of AzFlin, adding that such behaviour is neither supported nor condoned at Uniswap Labs.

The developer has mocked the situation at hand with a series of light-hearted posts along with a new X (formerly Twitter) cover photo.

AzFlin is making fun of their new unemployment status. Source: X (formerly Twitter).

AzFlin, however, claims that no rug pull was committed.

“I bought that $FRENS used to provide LP with my OWN money from the dev wallet, so I am entitled to do as I please with it. This FUD is outrageous,” they said on Aug. 12.

Not everyone is buying into AzFlin’s story though, with some applauding Adams’ decision to fire AzFlin for the alleged action:

Zuckerberg calls out Musk for dodging cage fight

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it's “time to move on” from any talks of a potential cage fight between him and Elon Musk, accusing the Tesla CEO of making excuses and dragging his feet on any solid plans.

Zuckerberg explained in an Aug. 13 Threads post that Musk isn’t “serious” about a real fight because Musk has dragged on giving any potential dates for the bout.

“I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on.” Zuckerberg added:

“Elon won’t confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s latest comments on a potential fight with fellow billionaire Elon Musk. Source: Threads

Zuckerberg — who has helped re-shaped Meta’s investment focus on the Metaverse and artificial intelligence — said that he will be ready for a fight whenever Musk “gets serious” about a real date and official event.

The Meta CEO said he will continue to focus on competing with those who take the sport seriously for the meantime.

Donald Trump holds Ethereum and NFTs

Financial records have revealed that former United States President Donald Trump owns between $250,001 to $500,000 in Ethereum (ETH).

The statement, which was filed to the United States Office of Government Ethics on April 14, lists “cryptocurrency wallet (Ethereum)” as one of Trump’s investments, according to the 82-page form.

Donald Trump's public financial disclosure report. Source: U.S. Government

The investment may possibly be linked to Trump’s several nonfungible token (NFT) collections which have hit the market on several occasions between 2022 and 2023.

Trump’s NFT venture is expected to rake in between $100,000 and $1 million, according to the financial statement.

Despite the cryptocurrency and NFT investments, the billionaire businessman has voiced his skepticism towards the industry in the past, labeling Bitcoin (BTC) as a “scam” and cryptocurrencies more broadly as “potentially a disaster waiting to happen” in Aug. 2021.

Trump is once again in the running to become the next U.S. President in the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election.

Steadefi hacker turns to Tornado Cash

The exploiter of decentralized finance protocol Steadefi has transferred 100 Ether (ETH), worth about $185,000 to cryptocurrency mixing protocol Tornado Cash, according to blockchain security firm CertiK.

CertiK explained on Aug. 13 that the hacker still holds $786,000 (424 ETH) connected to the Steadefi exploit, which took place on Aug. 7.

A total of $334,000 was drained directly from Steadefi, with total losses amounting to over $1.1 million, according to some estimates.

Tornado Cash has served as a tool for hackers attempting to obfuscate the money trail and cash out the stolen funds.

On Aug. 8, 2022, the United States Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned Ethereum and USD Coin (USDC) addresses connected to the privacy tool.

Also making news

United States Senator Cynthia Lummis has filed an amicus brief supporting Coinbase’s motion to dismiss its lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Lummis says the SEC is unrightfully pushing to obtain “primary influence” over the cryptocurrency sector at a time where much regulatory consideration needs to be taken by Congress.

Decentralized finance platform Curve Finance has officially stated on Aug. 11 its intention to reimburse users impacted by the recent hack resulting in $62 million of losses on July 30. The firm has already managed to retrieve 79% of the funds thus far.

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Uniswap’s $165 Million Series B Capital Raise One of the Largest by a Crypto Firm in 2022

Uniswap’s 5 Million Series B Capital Raise One of the Largest by a Crypto Firm in 2022Uniswap Labs, the firm behind the Uniswap decentralized exchange protocol, announced on Thursday that it raised $165 million in a Series B funding round. According to one report, the capital raise, which sees Uniswap Labs’ valuation rise to $1.66 billion, is the largest by any crypto firm in 2022. Uniswap Completes $165M Capital Raise, Decentralized […]

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Uniswap Foundation proposal gets mixed reaction over $74M price tag

The largest DEX in the world could be supported by a new $74 million foundation if a new proposal from two community members passes a vote later this month.

The Uniswap Labs community has already begun mulling over a new proposal that would form a Uniswap Foundation based in the United States (U.S.), but first, it's going to cost $74 million.

The proposal has garnered mixed feedback from the community so far, with many praising the foundation’s plans to support and expand the Uniswap ecosystem, while others have balked at its hefty price tag.

The Aug. 5 proposal was put forth by Uniswap Labs’ former Chief of Staff Devin Walsh and Uniswap Grant Program lead Kenneth Ng, noting the foundation's main aim is to “support the Protocol’s decentralized growth, reinvigorate governance, and serve as a Protocol advocate” according to Walsh.

If it passes a vote, the Uniswap Foundation (UF) would be incorporated in Delaware and headed by Walsh as executive director, while Ng will become head of operations. 

To make her vision a reality, Walsh has asked for $74 million in UNI tokens over three years, $60 million of which would be used for its own Uniswap Grant Program (UGP), while another $14 million will be used as “operating budget” to build out a team of 12.

Uniswap is the world’s largest decentralized exchange (DEX) by trading volume. Uniswap V3, the third version of the DEX has done $793.8 billion in volume over the past 24 hours, putting it on par with centralized exchanges (CEXs) Huobi Global and KuCoin according to CoinGecko.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams proclaimed in an Aug. 4 tweet that he was “Sooo excited about this proposal.” Adams seemed confident that the proposal would pass when he added, “After this passes, the Foundation will be yet another team working towards a future where the Protocol does not just survive — it thrives!”

Although the proposal has so far enjoyed a fair amount of support from Adams and others in the Uniswap community, it has run into a significant cohort of detractors who say the price is far too high.

Partner at Cinneamhain Ventures Adam Cochran shared his approval for the goals of the UF, but added in an Aug. 4 tweet that the $60 million for the UGP “is misguided at this phase.”

Cochran pointed out that the $7 million in grants that the current UGP has already issued have been spent on “underwhelming” issues. He concluded that while there have been several worthwhil ventures the UGP has invested in, “I don't think the current performance merits "Give us $60M + $14M to run it for 3 years.”

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Co-creator of decentralized game Dark Forest Scott Sunarto also felt that the UF’s goals were in line with the protocol’s potential for growth, but that there was too much “fluff” in the proposal. He suggested the UF concentrate efforts on “protocol growth and R&D.”

The proposal will be put to a final vote on the Snapshot governance voting platform on Aug. 8 if the current ongoing straw poll passes.

UNI is up 1.4% over the past 24 hours, trading at $9.04 according to CoinGecko.

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So-Called ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli Turns ‘Crypto Bro’ — ‘I Started Using Uniswap in Prison’

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Uniswap v3 flips v2 on volume — and both versions flip Bitcoin on fee revenue

Both iterations of the world’s most popular DEX now generate more fee revenue than Bitcoin.

The world’s largest decentralized exchange keeps growing and the newly-launched third iteration has now surpassed version two in terms of daily volumes.

In addition to v3 topping the daily transaction volumes of v2, both have individually surpassed Bitcoin in terms of daily fee generation. The move was observed by Uniswap founder Hayden Adams who commented that both are earning more daily and weekly fees than Bitcoin miners.

Data from Cryptofees showed that Uniswap v3, which was launched on May 5, generated $4.5 million with v2 generating $3.8 million in fees for the day. Bitcoin was behind both of them at the time with $3.7 million in daily fee generation.

At the time of writing, the website was reporting that Uniswap v3 generated $4.1 million in the current 24 hour period whereas v2 is in second place with $3.2 million. SushiSwap is the next largest DEX after Uniswap with $2.135 million. Bitcoin and Ethereum estimates were not available for the past 24 hours but the previous day's fees on Bitcoin hit $2.821 million, while Ethereum raked in $28.71 million.

Critics often blame high Ethereum gas fees on Uniswap for being responsible, but the revenue figures are actually swapping fees paid to liquidity providers rather than gas fees.

In terms of daily transaction volumes, v3 has now surpassed v2 with $1.48 billion over the past 24 hours according to Uniswap’s analytics page. Version 2 had a reported daily volume of $1.1 billion. For total value locked, v2 still dominates with $5.8 billion compared to $1.46 billion on v3.

On May 20, Cointelegraph reported Messari's prediction that v3 would surpass v2 by volume this month.

Uniswap’s success has been so prominent that finance industry bible The Wall Street Journal has picked up on it, suggesting the DEX and others like it posed a growing threat to Coinbase. A report on May 24 stated that Uniswap had a volume of $36.6 billion in April, compared with $110 billion at Coinbase.

It added that Coinbase listed competition from decentralized exchanges as a potential business risk before going public last month.

It may not end up as an 'either/or' situation but end up with 'both' benefiting. Adams predicted that centralized exchanges would eventually tap into Uniswap’s liquidity pools, “essentially becoming front-end interfaces with slick apps and websites that rely on Uniswap behind the scenes to power trading.”

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Uniswap v3 overtakes SushiSwap by volume, on track to surpass v2 this month

Uniswap v3 is now the second-largest Ethereum-based decentralized exchange by volume, ranking only behind Uniswap v2.

Despite launching to the Ethereum mainnet just two weeks ago, Uniswap v3 has already overtaken SushiSwap to rank as the second-largest Ethereum-based decentralized exchange by trade volume.

On May 20, Ryan Watkins of crypto data aggregator Messari noted that v3 had hosted 81% of the volume hosted by v2 over 24 hours earlier this week.

The researcher shared data showing that as of May 16, v3 had processed 15% more weekly volume than major Ethereum-based DEX SushiSwap, beating out Sushi’s $5.6 billion with $6.5 billion. 0x ranked behind SushiSwap with $3 billion, followed by Curve with $1.9 billion, and Balancer with $1.2 billion.

With v3 coming within reach of v2’s daily volume despite only holding 15% of the total value locked, or TVL, v3 appears to be realizing its mission of increased capital efficiency.

Watkins noted that v3 is the only automated market maker that turns over more than 100% of its $900 million TVL each day, beating out its rivals by more than 400%. V3’s turnover is equal to 104% of the platform’s TVL, Uniswap v2 ranks second with 20%, followed by SushiSwap with 16%, Bancor with 6%, and Balancer with 5%.

The combined market share of v2 and v3 suggests Uniswap now represents more than 60% of all Ethereum-based DEX trade.

Uniswap founder, Hayden Adams, tweeted that v3’s daily volume surged to 3.3 times its $900 TVL amid yesterday’s frenzied crash that saw Bitcoin test support at roughly $30,000, with v3 processing more than $2.6 billion worth of trades in 24 hours — beating out its previous record by more than $1 billion.

Adams added that layer-two scaling is next on v3’s roadmap to lower fees for users.

Uniswap v3’s volume initially appeared to have bolstered by the speculative dog-token frenzy that briefly gripped the markets in early May, with the Ether/Shiba Inu ($SHIB) pairing ranking as v3’s dominant pair by fees generated and total number of trades and third by weekly volume five days after the platform’s launch. Akita Inu ($AKITA) and Dogelon Mars ($ELON) also ranked fifth and sixth by total number of trades respectively.

SHIB has since fallen to rank seventh by volume and third by fee generation, however, is still half of v3’s top-ranked pairing by weekly number of trades.

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