Hayden Adams, founder of decentralized exchange Uniswap, warned users against fraudulent ads impersonating the platform, highlighting a case where the victim reportedly lost everything.
The ruling comes after January saw the highest amount stolen in cryptocurrency scams in 11 months.
“Deceptive advertising continues to resurface despite years of reporting” – Adams he said in post X on Friday. “While we were waiting for months for App Store approval, fraudulent Uniswap apps emerged,” he said.
Fraudsters are increasingly buying ads on popular search engines targeting keywords like “Uniswap,” so when cryptocurrency users search for it, the top result appears to be official.
Unsuspecting users can then connect their wallets and approve the transaction, allowing fraudsters to siphon off their entire funds.
The consequence of a “long chain of bad decisions”
User X named “Ika” he said in X’s article titled “I Lost Everything, What’s Next?” that his cryptocurrency portfolio, valued at an average six-figure sum, had been depleted despite his extreme caution. “Disciplined for two years. I was partly looking for a job in web3, partly I hoped that I would be able to find it quickly enough that I wouldn’t need it,” he said.
“I believe that exhaustion does not mean bad luck. It is the final consequence of a long chain of bad decisions,” Ika said.
X’s lengthy post came shortly after he posted a screenshot of a top Google search result with an inauthentic Uniswap link.
This isn’t the first time Uniswap has experienced this problem. In October 2024, Cointelegraph reported that fraudsters noticed a lack of domain permissions on the site and created a version of the site that looked exactly like the real thing, except that it included a “connect” button where “get started” should be, and a “bridge” button where “read documents” should be.
Related: The Dutch authorities are calling on the Polymarket branch to cease operations
More recently, the value of cryptocurrencies stolen through exploits and scams reached $370.3 million last month, the highest monthly amount in 11 months and a nearly four-fold raise compared to January 2025.
Cryptocurrency security company CertiK he said of the 40 exploit and fraud incidents that occurred in January, the majority of the total value stolen came from a single victim who lost approximately $284 million to a social engineering scam.
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