1inch co-founder Anton Bukov stated he was fired at the end of November 2025 and announced the launch of a new project, Second Tier.

1inch co-founder Anton Bukov published a statement saying he was fired at the end of November 2025. While he remains a co-founder of the decentralized exchange aggregator and holds a 50% stake, he is no longer involved in the company’s operations, product architecture, security design, or related oversight duties. Since co-founding 1inch in May 2019, Bukov led work on protocol architecture, security, and economic model design, and contributed to launching key products including the 1inch Router, 1inch Fusion, cross-chain atomic swaps, and shared liquidity automated market makers (AMMs). Bukov noted that feedback from users and team members over the past year led him to realize he could not stay on the sidelines of the company’s management and operations. He subsequently spent months learning leadership and communication skills and driving internal changes, before being dismissed in late November 2025. He also announced the launch of a new project called Second Tier, with plans to collaborate with like-minded teams to build secure, efficient systems that bridge the gap between economic intent and real-world execution.