0x calls Uniswap v4 hooks a mistake after finding 54% are malicious, Hayden Adams pushes back

DEX aggregator 0x just lobbed a grenade into one of DeFi’s most watched experiments. In a report published on September 14 titled “Uniswap v4 hooks were a mistake,” the team laid out findings from an extensive analysis of the customizable hook system that Uniswap introduced in its fourth major protocol version. The conclusion was blunt: the feature has become a breeding ground for quote-spoofing attacks that drain unsuspecting traders. Uniswap founder Hayden Adams fired back, framing the problem as an inherent reality of permissionless systems rather than a design flaw specific to v4. The exchange marks one of the sharpest public disagreements between two major DeFi infrastructure players in recent memory, and it touches on a tension that has simmered for years: how much openness is too much? The numbers behind the critique 0x analyzed 84,163 hooks deployed across six blockchain networks. The results were not pretty. Only 19.4% of those hooks were classified as safe. A full 54.2% were flagged as outright malicious, with another 26.4% categorized as “likely malicious.” That means roughly four out of five hooks operating in the wild could pose a risk to users. The attack vector is st...