With a finite supply of only 4.4 tokens, the founder of the decentralized exchange Uniswap’s initial experimental token has amassed an astonishing valuation of over $3 million per token.
In 2019, while the exchange was just getting started, Hayden Adams, the platform’s founder, published the original tokens. A group of cryptocurrency traders came across some of the surviving tokens earlier this month, despite the fact that the initial coins to be seeded and sold on the platform were never supposed to have any value and that a major portion of the supply was destroyed shortly after. They succeeded in obtaining all 4.4 tokens that were on the market and gave it the name HayCoin (HAY).
Adams controlled a wallet where the remaining tokens that had not been destroyed were kept. The open-market coins’ price quickly increased to hundreds of thousands of dollars due to their limited quantity, giving them a market capitalization of less than $10 million.
On the other hand, Adams burned his stockpile on Saturday, effectively eradicating 99.99% of the entire quantity. By sending them to an address that is not under anyone’s control, burns are a technique to permanently remove tokens from the supply that is in circulation.
He wrote on X, “Five years ago, prior to the release of Uniswap v1, I launched a coin called HayCoin to utilize for testing.” Back then, a mainnet could be utilized as a testnet because gas was so inexpensive. I used a minor portion of the total supply after the introduction of v1 to construct a small test liquidity pool and kept the rest in my wallet. Additionally, I tested the Uniswap v1 to v2 migration contract using it.
A few people have spotted it throughout the years and purchased it as a joke or novelty item. In the end, holding nearly the entire supply (99.99%) of a token that others are meme-ing and speculating on makes me uneasy,” he added.
Adam’s move results in only 4.4 tokens from the initial Uniswap deal remaining, which some cryptocurrency investors may view as a nostalgic value or perhaps a digital relic. Prices rose as high as $4.4 million per unit on Sunday before stabilizing over $3 million on Monday.
Similar to any other cryptocurrency, traders can buy a portion of these tokens, but Adams is still generally dissatisfied.
To be crystal clear, he stated, “I have burned all the HAY in my wallet and think speculating on it is silly. I will have no further involvement.”
