1inch co-founder Anton Bukov has left the project after six years and is starting a new venture.
Bukov said in a post on Thursday that he was fired from the 1inch team at the end of November 2025, although he will retain his co-founder title and a 50% ownership stake.
The DEX aggregator confirmed the exit on
We can confirm that Anton Bukov no longer contributes to the 1inch project and is no longer actively involved with affiliated organizations as of December 2025.
This has no influence on the operation of 1inch Network or affiliated organizations. The protocols,…
— 1inch (@1inch) July 16, 2026
Bukov leaves 1 inch after 6 years
Bukov co-founded 1inch in May 2019 and led the architecture, security and economic design of the protocol.
Not much was revealed about why the split happened. Bukov, however, appears to have pushed for leadership reform.
In his post, Bukov mentioned that he had received feedback from both teammates and users that made him want to contribute to the management and operations side of the company.
“I spent months learning how to build leadership and communication and pushing for change,” Bukov said. “I was fired at the end of November 2025.”
1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz also posted on
The company will continue to operate under Kunz and the existing management team, 1inch said.
Bukov is going to start a new project
In the same post, Bukov announced that he is starting a new DeFi project called Second Tier.
“I believe that DeFi is the path to an open financial system, a system without friction and without intermediaries,” Bukov said. “I’d rather build that than wait for it.”
Bukov hasn’t revealed exactly what Second Tier has to offer. However, he said it will reduce the distance between economic intention and its implementation, and he is building it with the “people who share the same values from day one.”
At the time of writing, the $1 INCH token fell 1.6% over 24 hours and traded at a market price of $0.07394.
