1inch Co-founder Anton Bukov Fired, Launches New Project
1inch co-founder Anton Bukov announced that he was fired at the end of November 2025. He remains a co-founder and holds a 50% stake but is no longer involved in company operations, product architecture, security design, or related oversight.
Since co-founding 1inch in May 2019, Bukov has primarily been responsible for protocol architecture, security, and economic model design, participating in the launch of products such as 1inch Router, 1inch Fusion, cross-chain atomic swaps, and shared liquidity AMMs.
Feedback from users and the team over the past year made him realize he could no longer remain outside of management and operations. He subsequently spent months learning leadership and communication methods to drive change, ultimately leading to his dismissal at the end of November 2025.
Bukov also announced the launch of a new project called Second Tier, aiming to build a secure and efficient system with a like-minded team to shorten the distance between economic intent and actual execution.
Source: Public information
ABAB AI Insight
As the core of 1inch's technical architecture, Anton Bukov has led the development of several key products since its inception. His dismissal reflects a divergence between the founders and the company's operational management regarding leadership style and direction of change, while his 50% stake still retains significant influence.
On the capital front, after leaving, Bukov is shifting focus to his new project Second Tier, which emphasizes execution efficiency. 1inch may continue its existing path under the remaining team's leadership, with the founding team's resources diversifying from a single project to multiple projects, and some capital attention shifting to his new venture.
This incident is similar to cases in DeFi projects where founders leave due to management disagreements, occurring as 1inch transitions from early product-driven stages to mature operations.
Essentially, this represents a shift in technological leadership and pricing power: after the core technical founder's departure, the company must rely on the new management to maintain product security and innovation, with trust and execution shifting from individuals to team structures, while the founder's new project may attract some community attention and capital.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Technical geniuses often fail in management communication; execution determines long-term control.
Holding shares does not equate to having a voice; change agents can easily become subjects of change.
The distance from intent to execution is the true bottleneck of all system efficiencies.