Uniswap ($UNI) Scam Goes Viral in China: Fake Executives, IRL Events, and Zoom Calls

Hayden Adams, the inventor of the Uniswap protocol, recently took to Twitter to express his astonishment at a scam that involved the creation of a fraudulent version of the Uniswap website. In a tweet, Adams stated, “Some next level effort went into this scam.” He further revealed that the scammers had incorporated Chinese community content and added links to the authentic Uniswap app on their forged website.

UniSwap Under Scammers

To make matters even more convincing, the scammers organized an hour-long Zoom recording featuring individuals posing as executives from Uniswap. Adams commented on this aspect, saying,

“Video is nuts. No idea who any of those people are.”

He clarified that neither Uniswap nor the Foundation had any association with the video or the individuals involved:

Crypto Twitter speculated that the scam might revolve around a video showcasing people in Shenzhen, China promoting $UNI, the native cryptocurrency of Uniswap. The video reportedly bore titles such as “The first Uniswap Asian Summit” and “Guest: CEO of Uniswap.”

Speculations About The Scam

Hayden Adams and team have been working diligently to address this fraudulent activity. They are currently in the process of taking down the domain used for the forged website.

Roland, a user named @thegrasscrown, expressed his surprise at the event mentioned in Hayden Adams’ tweet, stating that he had never heard of such an event despite living just an hour away from Shenzhen. He speculated that the event might have been promoted underground due to the strict regulations surrounding cryptocurrency in China.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) prohibited crypto exchanges from operating in the country in 2013, claiming they encouraged public financing sans approval. China has banned all cruptocurrency operations since September 2021.

Read more about crypto regulation in China.

The Uniswap Protocol, $UNI is the most used protocol on Ethereum. They shared that it has processed over $1.5 trillion transactions, making it the world’s largest onchain trading protocol.