Hayden Adams just had a week to remember. It started with Adams announcing a critical update to Uniswap, the decentralized protocol he created in 2018, and ended with him catching strays on social media from a would-be rival and a former staffer at the Securities and Exchange Commission. The uproar reflected Crypto Twitter’s penchant for posturing and drama. But it also raised real questions about the meaning of decentralization—a word that serves as a crypto catechism but whose true meaning is maddeningly unclear.
Uniswap, if you’re unfamiliar, is the most prominent name in DeFi. The name describes both a wallet and website interface, but also an open source protocol anyone can use to spin up their own version of decentralized trading. As for Adams’ proposed update, the most significant element would see the protocol flip on a so-called fee switch.
