1inch Co-Founder Anton Bukov Says He Was Fired in November, Still Owns Half the Protocol

Anton Bukov says he got fired. The co-founder of 1inch — the decentralized exchange aggregator he helped build from scratch — claims he was pushed out in November and, despite that ouster, still holds roughly 50% of the protocol. He’s already moved on: Bukov has surfaced a new infrastructure startup called Second Tier, according to The Defiant.

If accurate, this ranks among the messiest co-founder splits in DeFi’s short and frequently chaotic history. But the whole account rests on Bukov alone. Neither 1inch nor his co-founder Sergej Kunz has issued so much as a public sentence in response.

Who Is Anton Bukov?

Bukov and Kunz founded 1inch Network together in 2019, as documented in an Encode Club AMA. His wasn’t a figurehead post — he ran architecture and security, the technical spine of a protocol that routes trades across dozens of liquidity sources, per The Defiant’s reporting. His X bio and CoinMarketCap profile both clock over 20 years of software engineering experience, with DeFi involvement dating to 2017, well before the last bull cycle turned “DEX aggregator” into something civilians had ever heard. As recently as October 2025, he was still publicly attached to the project — quoted in a 1inch blog post on on-chain versus off-chain finance.

The Firing Claim

His exit, by his telling, was not a managed handoff. Not a resignation. Fired. The Defiant’s report doesn’t pin down whether November means 2024 or 2025, and no date has been independently confirmed — but Bukov’s framing is deliberate, and it matters. A co-founder claiming termination from a protocol he co-owns is a structurally different situation from an amicable parting; it immediately raises questions about what triggered the break and whether any governance documents actually authorized the move in the first place.

The Ownership Dispute

Then there’s the ownership angle, which is where this gets genuinely complicated. Bukov says he still holds approximately 50% of 1inch despite having no operational role. No founding agreement, on-chain record, or corporate filing has emerged to corroborate that figure. But if it holds — and that’s a large if — the implications don’t stay theoretical for long. A 50% equity stake in a major DeFi protocol carries potential governance weight, decision-making leverage, and legal standing that could complicate treasury management, future fundraising, and plenty else besides. The question 1inch hasn’t answered publicly is blunt: can a protocol operate cleanly when half its ownership sits outside the building?

Second Tier: What We Know

Bukov isn’t waiting around for an answer. Second Tier is already in motion, described as an infrastructure startup. Details are thin — no product specs, no disclosed funding, no team composition beyond Bukov’s own involvement has been made public. The name implies a layer-two or secondary infrastructure focus, but that’s inference, not confirmed scope. What the launch does make plain is that Bukov is pointing his engineering background at a new build rather than drifting into advisory roles or silence.

Why This Matters for 1inch and DeFi

The backdrop makes all of this harder to contain. 1inch is one of DeFi’s most prominent DEX aggregators; co-founder disputes at protocols of this scale rarely stay neat. Token holders, governance participants, and integration partners all carry direct stakes in protocol stability, and a drawn-out ownership fight could unsettle all three at once. The broader market isn’t offering any cushion: total crypto market capitalisation sits at $2,291.54 billion, down 1.52% over the past 24 hours, with the Fear & Greed Index at 25 out of 100 — deep in Extreme Fear territory as of July 16, 2026. BBTC$63,996.00▼1.47% trades at $64,499; EETH$1,866.39▼3.19% at $1,877, both red on the day. Internal drama at a flagship DeFi protocol is precisely the kind of story that lands badly when sentiment is already this fragile.

What’s Still Missing

A lot stays unanswered. No statement from 1inch or Kunz has appeared in any available source. The 50% ownership claim is unverified. Second Tier’s actual scope is undefined. And it remains unclear whether Bukov’s alleged equity translates into any governance token control or exists purely at the corporate entity level — a distinction with very different practical consequences for 1INCH holders. An official response from 1inch would answer several of those questions in one shot, and token holders will be watching for one.