Fireside Chat with Hayden Adams (Uniswap Labs) and Camila Russo (The Defiant) at ETHConf

Thu, Jul 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

In this fireside chat, Camila Russo from The Defiant sits down with Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, to discuss the current state of DeFi, the recent Unification proposal, regulation, RWAs, perps, and what's next for Uniswap V4. Hayden frames the current moment as a pivotal one where DeFi is being integrated into mainstream finance through Coinbase, Robinhood, Deel, and traditional fintechs, while simultaneously facing a wave of security exploits driven by smarter AI tooling like Claude finding vulnerabilities in poorly written contracts. He sleeps well at night because Uniswap V3 underwent nine consecutive audits with a $15 million bounty, processes over a trillion dollars per year, and has never been exploited. He argues AI tooling will ultimately harden DeFi contracts to a far greater extent, and the projects that survive will be the ones that removed off chain dependencies and single points of failure. Hayden discusses the Unification proposal approved in December that consolidated foundation work into Labs and gradually rolled out fee switches, including a recent all time high single day burn of 186,000 UNI (about $500K) with V4 fees still not yet activated. He acknowledges the UNI token price disconnect from the burn but attributes this to general crypto market correlation, expecting fundamental value to assert itself over time. On regulation, Hayden explains how the shift from the Gensler era of regulation by enforcement has already done much of the work by removing the chilling effect, and the BRCA software developer protections are the key piece he'd want enshrined in any market structure bill. He outlines how Uniswap fits into RWAs and tokenization through the internet analogy (existing assets going onchain plus crypto native assets), differentiates Uniswap's neutral spot infrastructure approach from Hyperliquid's exchange as a product approach, and previews V4 hooks being built internally to optimize for stablecoins (where Uniswap has overtaken Curve as the dominant venue), yield bearing assets, RWAs, and volatile assets, plus a focus on issuer side tools and developer API integrations. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 DeFi at a Pivotal Mainstream Adoption Moment 01:35 Why Exploits Are Surging: AI Tooling Finds Bugs 02:22 Test in Production Mentality Doesn't Work Anymore 02:46 How V3 Survived: Nine Audits and a $15M Bounty 03:31 Launching a New Version Like Launching a Rocket 03:53 DeFi Ultimately Enables Safer Applications 04:24 Off Twitter, Adoption Is the Best It's Ever Been 05:15 DeFi Will Come Out Stronger From This Stress Test 06:29 The Unification Proposal Six Months In 07:38 Gradual Fee Switch Rollout and Sensitivity Testing 08:18 All Time High Single Day Burn of 186,000 UNI 09:00 The UNI Token Price Disconnect From Burn 10:39 Fundamental Value Will Assert Itself Over Time 10:56 Regulation: From Gensler Era to New Posture 11:53 The Chilling Effect That Held Back Integration 13:14 BRCA and Software Developer _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _