SushiSwap

SushiSwap emerged in August 2020 as an automated market-making (AMM) DEX forked from Uniswap, introducing the "vampire attack" strategy that migrated over $800 million in liquidity within weeks. This event became a landmark in DeFi history, proving that community-driven incentives could challenge entrenched incumbents.

In September 2020, the project faced a crisis when founder Chef Nomi sold dev funds, triggering a community revolt. Control was transferred to a multi-sig governance structure, and SushiSwap evolved into a community-governed DAO. This transition set a precedent for decentralized governance in DeFi.

Throughout 2021-2023, SushiSwap expanded beyond its original AMM, deploying on over 30 chains and launching products like Kashi (lending), Miso (launchpad), and BentoBox (vault). The 2022 brand restructuring into Sushi Labs introduced a council-style governance model, separating operational management from DAO voting.

In 2024, SushiSwap achieved profitability, generating over $10 million in revenue through its AMM, aggregator, and related products. The year also saw the relaunch of Sushi Bar staking and the integration of advanced trading tools like limit orders and DCA.

2025 marked a strategic pivot with the announcement of multiple new products: Wara (Solana-based trading platform), Kubo (perpetual contracts), Blade (impermanent loss mitigation AMM), and Susa (on-chain order book DEX). The first season of Perps points program concluded in July, and the launch of a linear vesting memecoin platform signaled expansion into new asset classes.

Despite leadership changes and market share challenges, SushiSwap's resilience through governance evolution, multi-chain expansion, and product innovation demonstrates its enduring significance as a pioneering force in decentralized finance.

Fee restructure vote: From August 27 to September 3, 2026, the Sushi DAO voted on a tokenomics restructure: xSUSHI buybacks capped at 1% of protocol fees plus 1% of perpetuals revenue, 4% of protocol fees buying SUSHI weekly into a new SUSHI Reserve, and the remainder going to Sushi Ops for development and operations; the plan also moves $10-20 million of EVM liquidity to Robinhood Chain, starting with the ETH-USDG V3 pool.

Execution and concentration: A fourth weekly buyback was completed, acquiring 9,054 SUSHI at an average of $0.26 for a cumulative 37,840 tokens. xSUSHI holders previously received 0.68% of protocol fees, below the new cap, and on August 30 a single address held 99.76% of voting power, raising governance concentration concerns.

On September 4, 2026, Sushi Launch V2 went live on Robinhood Chain, introducing the Moon Mode launch curve built on progressive V3 liquidity ranges, tokenised stock pairs and more flexible creator fee routing, including an optional buyback and burn.

On February 9, Sushi connected to Solana through Jupiter's Ultra API, enabling SOL and EVM cross-chain swaps; a perpetuals points programme began on April 2 with its first season ending July 31, and decentralised stop-loss and take-profit orders arrived in June. The Katana L2 has held over $100 million in TVL, while franchise DEXes such as Wara and Saru form a multi-DEX structure.

SushiSwap's Future strategy and roadmap: Sushi launched Launch V2 on Robinhood Chain on September 4, 2026, with the Moon Mode launch curve based on progressive liquidity ranges, tokenized stock pairs, and creator fee routing, where issuers can opt for buyback-and-burn. Next it will widen fee capture across Launch and perps and extend buyback-and-burn to more issuance scenarios, running weekly protocol purchases from September 7 and monthly buybacks to xSUSHI from October 1. Katana L2 and Perps v2 keep advancing, aiming to lift xSUSHI real yield and value capture within the multi-DEX structure.

Jared Grey, former Head Chef and Managing Director, moved to an advisory role in 2026. He founded and served as CEO of EONS and Bitfineon, and advised NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense. He led SushiSwap from 2022 and stepped down from operations in 2026 to a strategy advisor. Alex McCurry, current Managing Director, founded Solidity.io and leads the investment firm Synthesis, taking over after Synthesis made a strategic investment. Chef Nomi, anonymous founder and lead developer (departed), created SushiSwap in 2020 as a Uniswap fork, withdrew funds then returned them with an apology, after which the protocol was governed by the community DAO. 0xMaki, anonymous co-founder and core developer (departed), co-built SushiSwap with Chef Nomi in 2020, took over daily development after Nomi withdrew, expanded the protocol to over 15 chains, and stepped down in 2021 to advise LayerZero. SushiSwap's leadership has changed several times and is now run day-to-day by McCurry, with Grey retained as an advisor.

SushiSwap v2 charges a 0.30% standard swap fee: 0.25% goes to liquidity providers and 0.05% to the Sushi Bar, which buys back SUSHI on the open market and distributes it to xSUSHI holders.

SushiSwap Trident pools let LPs choose swap fees of 0.01%, 0.05%, 0.10% or 0.30%, with the routing engine selecting the best path by price impact and fees.