1inch Co-Founder Anton Bukov Launches DeFi Infrastructure Project Second Tier After Leaving The Company

Anton Bukov, co-founder of decentralized trade aggregator 1inch and the protocol architect behind its Router, Fusion, and Cross-chain Swap methods, has introduced his departure from the corporate and the launch of a brand new venture, Second Tier. The enterprise, he states, is concentrated on “constructing safe, environment friendly methods that shut the space between financial intent and its execution.”

According to the venture’s web site, Second Tier is constructed on the premise that the friction embedded in at present’s monetary system — intermediaries, settlement delays, permission layers, opaque phrases — shouldn’t be an inherent property of how worth strikes, however the product of deliberate design selections. Rather than optimizing inside current constraints, the venture operates one stage above them, redesigning the constraint itself. The said purpose is infrastructure that features the best way electrical energy does: silently, universally, and with out gatekeepers — a system through which what a person can do with their capital and what the protocol permits are lastly equivalent.

In apply, this implies Second Tier shouldn’t be constructing a single product however a sequence of open, protocol-level architectures supposed to create completely new classes within the programmable economic system. The technical method prioritizes fixing issues at their root relatively than patching signs: constructing methods the place financial intent interprets immediately into execution, with no middleman layer absorbing worth or introducing delay. 

The venture is guided by 4 rules handled as id commitments relatively than coverage: person sovereignty over capital and information, root-cause structure, full transparency of charges and interfaces, and long-term integrity towards customers and the product. Everything constructed is meant to be open — designed to be prolonged by others past the unique specification.

From 1inch to Second Tier: A Departure and a Conviction

In an accompanying assertion printed on X, Bukov mirrored on his tenure at 1inch, which he co-founded in May 2019. During that interval, he led the protocol’s structure, safety, and financial design, overseeing what he describes as a sequence of category-defining primitives: the primary DEX aggregator, the primary Dutch-auction value discovery mechanism for swaps, and trustless cross-chain execution by way of atomic swaps. 

“I’m happy with that work, and even prouder of the folks behind it,” he wrote, acknowledging the workforce as among the many most succesful within the trade.

His departure, nonetheless, was not voluntary. Bukov disclosed that after spending months pushing for adjustments to the corporate’s management and communication buildings — prompted by suggestions from customers and teammates — he was dismissed in late November 2025. 

He retains his standing as co-founder and holds a 50% shareholding, however has no involvement in 1inch’s operations, product structure, or safety oversight. The expertise crystallized a conviction he now treats as foundational: that the long-term success of any venture rests equally on technical excellence and on management grounded in values that maintain below strain — neither one adequate with out the opposite.

It is that conviction, he says, that’s driving Second Tier. “I consider DeFi is the best way to an open monetary system, one with no friction and no middlemen,” Bukov said. “I’d relatively construct that than wait round for it.”

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