SushiSwap leadership conflicts had resurfaced when CTO Joseph Delong requested greater autonomy and a pay boost for core developers.
SushiSwap changed ownership a few times
A Uniswap fork resulted in the second-largest general-purpose DEX on Ethereum. SushiSwap was an early adopter of liquidity mining, aggressively exploited to urge Uniswap customers to shift their LP tokens to SushiSwap. As a result, individuals in the DeFi business coined the phrase “vampiric mining.”
Chef Nomi, the mysterious SushiSwap creator, was fired in September 2020 after selling a 14 million USD part of the development money. The DEX was taken over by a group of well-known crypto figures led by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who eventually selected co-founder 0xMaki as project leader. About a year later, 0xMaki resigned from this post but said he would continue to serve as an advisor.
Was 0xMaki fired in secret?
Sushi is failing sadly. hope bad actors can be called out n removed
When you started to lose faith in one project, you will never want to work for it
Things have changed. Sushi is no longer a community-driven project but JORKN's *company*
Joseph, Omakase, Rachel, Keno, Nori
— AG (@AGdyor) November 25, 2021
Internal images were leaked in June 2021, implying that 0xMaki’s departure was a forced-choice organized by SushiSwap’s key developers. Instead, he was given an advising role since he was on a three-year contract and could not be fired.
Other recently sacked developers indicated that what was once a showpiece project for community-driven development is now in the hands of just five core team members who have complete power over recruiting and dismissing.
“JOKR” is accused of stealing and misbehaving.
The main team, Joseph Delong, Omakase, 0xKeno, and Rachel Chu, was also chastised for using the dev cash to pay for lavish dinners and event tickets.
This was eventually surpassed when JOKR distributed the BitDAO token sale incentives to core team members, substantially favoring themselves in the distribution. Half of the money was meant to be sent by airdrop to token holders, but they were never distributed.
On December 5, Joseph Delong posted a Twitter thread in which he called the claims “absurd slander.” He vowed to resign as CTO unless the core team members were granted greater authority and paid more.
I am not very well compensated for the job I am doing. I received a payment of $300k in Sushi for my work for this year and that ends on January 7th, 2022. That may seem like a lot but I took a pay cut leaving Dapper Labs to come work on Sushi because it seemed exciting.
— Joseph Delong (@josephdelong) December 5, 2021
Of course, whether $300,000 is a suitable pay for the CTO of a 750 million USD DAO is debatable. But being suspected of embezzlement is hardly the moment to seek more authority and a salary hike.
This was the final straw for the SushiSwap community, which is now debating a governance motion to urge Delong to stand down. Polls show that 82 percent of people support it at the time of writing. Another recommendation is to terminate Rachel Chu, who is believed to be responsible for the BitDAO incident:
Regaining control
The SushiSwap community is now debating how to go from here. One suggestion is that the core team formally explain various concerns, including the BitDAO incident and 0xMaki’s resignation.
“Rachel Chu must be removed for taking the Bit Dao money worth 600k without consulting us or her team members. […] Rachel must be fired and the Bit Dao money returned to the community. Rachel acted illegally and breach of her duty as business development person for Sushi.”
Several ideas have been made to reform the SushiSwap DAO. One of the most likely candidates wants to form a group of product teams, with operations monitored by a council chosen by the community. So far, all 73 poll votes for this proposal have been cast uniformly in favor. Another suggestion calls for the election of a CEO for a six-month tenure.
