SushiSwap is a clear-cut example of the so-called AMM. This abbreviation stands for the automated market maker, a decentralized exchange (DEX) which is able to create a market for any pair of tokens.

Launched on August 28, 2020, as a UniSwap’s hard fork on Ethereum blockchain it immediately conquered the crypto world with 1.4 billion USD market capitalization dragged from UniSwap.

SushiSwap added some new features to the usual AMM model of decentralized exchange such as revenue-sharing, larger rewarding pools and therefore higher rewards for participants, and development based on community decisions. But the main advantages are the in-house token SUSHI adding and handing total control to its holders. SushiSwap’s aim is to change the AMM market increasing the users’ influence on its development.

Sushiswap Ecosystem

The ecosystem of the project includes some products that serve different purposes. These are the Exchange, Liquidity Pools, SushiBar Staking, and Farms.

Exchange. The SushiSwap exchange allows users to swap any ERC20 tokens, which are staked in liquidity pools. When users make trades, a 0.3% fee is charged.

Liquidity Pools (LP). Liquidity providers can add their funds in different cryptocurrencies to pools. In return, they get Sushiswap Liquidity Provider (SLP) tokens, which they can further stake in the "Farm". They also receive trade fee rewards but only 0.25% goes to the pool participants, the remaining 0.05% is converted into SUSHI coins which are distributed among all token holders. This solution allows getting passive income even after leaving the pool. Users can claim their funds back at any moment.

SushiBar Staking (xSushi). The remaining 0.05% fee rewards in different currencies go to a pool called SushiBar. When fees from all the pools are collected they are sold for SUSHI on SushiSwap Exchange after a definite command that comes at least once a day. Finally, new Sushi coins are shared between the users in the xSushi pool. To earn more you can change your newly earned SUSHI to xSushi and stake it in the xSushi pool. The price of xSushi depends on how many rewards came to the pool.

Farms. Users can also invest tokens in yield farming. Farms allow users to get portions of newly minted rewards, which amount to 100 Sushi per block. Currently, they work only with tokens from SushiSwap pools.

SushiSwap Token

The native SushiSwap token is called SUSHI. It is a management ERC20 type of token, which fulfills two functions: it authorizes holders to participate in votes for further project development and allows getting income from providing liquidity or storing tokens.

SUSHI enters into circulation by liquidity mining where a pool of miners is rewarded to provide liquidity for a definite token fund. The mining started with a zero supply of tokens. Coins are issued every Ethereum block with the emission of 100 tokens per block. The initial reward distribution began at block number 10,750,000 on August 28th, 2020. The first 100,000 blocks had an increased block reward of 1,000 SUSHI, which was reduced to 100 two weeks later. New coins can be deposited into SushiSwap staking contracts (yield farms) to earn more SUSHI, used in voting, or added to pools.

To attract the crypto society’s attention and gain new followers the new SushiSwap chef held an airdrop on September 12th, 2020. 2 million tokens were freely distributed among users’ wallets. Developers get approximately 10% of all newly created coins and the rest is distributed among the participants. Initially, SUSHI had no supply limitations, but the users decided on a hard cap of 250 million tokens.

Among SushiSwap partners, there are some major exchanges where you can trade SUSHI such as FTX, Binance (listed SUSHI on September 1st, 2020), OKEx, Uniswap, and Huobi. If you need to store the token, you can choose any ERC20-compatible cryptocurrency wallet as SUSHI is an Ethereum based token. The project has already been audited for safety and other probable gaps by Quantstamp, DeFiSafety, and PeckShield Inc.

SushiSwap Governance

Since SushiSwap is a community-run project the only way to decide on something is by voting, which is provided by a voting metric SushiPowah. Users get one vote per one SUSHI-ETH SLP token locked into a farm. With such governance rights, SUSHI holders can vote for any suggested SushiSwap Improvement Proposal (SIP). After the community vote is finished, the multisig signers must sign to make it live.

Fraud Problems

Soon after SushiSwap release, when SUSHI’s price increased, Chef Nomi swapped sushi tokens worth 14 million USD from the project’s developer fund to ETH and transferred to his wallet. Following the news, the SUSHI price immediately dropped by 75%. The community accused Nomi of creating a scam project and threatened to ask the FBI to hold an investigation. On September 6th, he handed control keys over to Sam Bankman-Fried. On September 11th, he returned ETH coins with apologies promising that he would have no control and participate in the project only as an advisor.

SushiSwap Team

The SushiSwap founder like the Bitcoin creator prefers to stay anonymous and gives no information about himself. We only know that the pseudonym he uses on Twitter is Chef Nomi. The General Manager and the SushiSwap dashboard creator also post under pseudonyms 0xMaki and Zippo. They have all keys to handle SushiSwap’s code.
After Chef Nomi had left the project, he passed the ownership to Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange FTX and quantitative trading startup Alameda Research.

On September 9th, 2,143 wallets took part in the SushiSwap election that aimed to choose nine new leaders. 0xMaki, Zippo, Sam Bankman-Fried, Mick Hagen (the CEO at Genesis Block), Larry Cermak (a SushiSwap encourager), CMS Holdings (a cryptoassets investment firm), Robert Leshner (Compound Labs founder), Matthew Graham (Sino Global Capital), and Adam Cochran (a fintech investor and crypto companies’ consultant) took roles of multisig signers. Their functions are to control the project’s funds and govern code changes. If six of them approve a proposal it will be further developed.

According to 0xMaki, the project has no classic development team as the project is run by the community members, and anybody can participate in coding or product improvement.