1inch co-founder launches new project after departing from company operations
Bukov retains a 50% stake in 1inch but has no operational role.
Anton Bukov, co-founder of decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch, announced Thursday that he is building a new DeFi project called Second Tier after disclosing that he was removed from 1inch’s operational leadership late last year.
— Anton Bukov (e/acc)🦇🔊 (@k06a) July 16, 2026
Bukov co-founded 1inch in May 2019 and oversaw the protocol’s architecture, security and economic design while helping introduce products including the 1inch Router, Fusion, trustless cross-chain swaps and a forthcoming shared-liquidity AMM.
The DeFi engineer said that while he remains a co-founder and owns a 50% stake in the company, he no longer participates in its management and has no responsibility for its product architecture or security.
Reflecting on his departure, Bukov said he learned that sustainable blockchain projects require both technical innovation and leadership rooted in strong values. He said those lessons will shape Second Tier, which aims to develop secure, efficient decentralized financial systems that reduce friction between economic intent and execution.