1inch co-founder Anton Bukov says he was fired, launches Second Tier

1inch co-founder Anton Bukov said he has fully exited the company’s operations after more than seven years and is launching a new project called Second Tier. Bukov said he remains a co-founder with a 50% ownership stake in 1inch, but added that he was “fired” in November 2025 after pushing for changes to the company’s management and operations. The latest statements sharpen a public split at one of DeFi’s early DEX aggregators, which route trades across exchanges to seek better pricing. Bukov said he no longer takes part in 1inch’s operations and has no role in product architecture, security or oversight of either. 1inch, in a separate account posted to X, said Bukov had not been actively involved in associated organizations tied to the project since December 2025. Bukov co-founded 1inch in May 2019 with developer Sergej Kunz, who remains in charge. Kunz said Bukov’s departure is not disrupting, and will not disrupt, 1inch Network’s infrastructure or systems. Bukov’s new venture, Second Tier, is described as an independent DeFi infrastructure project, though no further product details were disclosed. The 1INCH token was down 1.6% over 24 hours at $0.07394 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko.