SushiSwap Gets New Head Chef After Months Of Controversy

After months of uncertainty and speculation, the SushiSwap community finally elected a new CEO to lead the decentralized exchange. 

The new CEO, Jared Grey, has pledged to help the decentralized exchange move past one of its most tumultuous periods and help it scale significantly. 

Resounding Community Support 

The SushiSwap community overwhelmingly voted in favor of Jared Grey as CEO. The selection came after an extended period of debate, controversy, and uncertainty within the SushiSwap ecosystem around the protocol’s governance. The new CEO has already declared plans to work on solving issues associated with the decentralized exchange’s internal structure, which could have led to departures in the past. 

Grey, the former CEO of Bitfineon, a now-defunct exchange and Web 3.0 incubator EONS, secured a landslide victory, drawing over 84% of the votes cast. Grey also appeared to have secured the backing of SUSHI whales, with five wallets, representing 95% of the votes, backing him. 

Speaking after his victory, Grey stated, 

“There is still quite a bit of inefficiency regarding automated-market makers, protocol user experiences, and other areas of the industry where we should continue iterating to build richer product experiences. I think Sushi has an opportunity to lead in these areas.”

Recapturing Market Share 

SushiSwap is currently the fifth-largest decentralized exchange, with data showing it currently has a total value locked (TVL) of $480 million. The price of the SUSHI token is also down significantly and has fallen nearly 89% since the beginning of the year. This figure is far greater than the drop suffered by its main rival, Uniswap, which fell by 63%. 

Grey stated that his first order of business would be to make SushiSwap more efficient, allowing the project to build more products efficiently and recapture its lost market share. 

“Leadership isn’t about taking credit for yourself but empowering others to win and taking responsibility for potential shortfalls. I promise the Sushi community to be straightforward and keep the project’s best interests at heart in whatever decisions I influence or make.”

The Voting Process 

The selection of Grey as CEO brings to an end a tumultuous few months for SushiSwap. The process started in earnest in May as part of the roadmap for Sushi 2.0. The goal of the proposal is to establish a clear path forward for the exchange, its ecosystem, and the community after the failed merger with the Frog Nation DeFi network. 

A Brief History Of Sushi 

SushiSwap was founded in 2020 and quickly became the top decentralized exchange after it launched a liquidity mining vampire attack on Uniswap, draining liquidity from the platform. However, uncertainty soon arose after the platform’s pseudo-anonymous founder and head chef, Chef Nomi, initiated a rug pull, withdrawing SUSHI/ETH and offloading it for ETH. 

However, the platform was able to rebound under co-founder 0xMaki, successfully presenting itself as an alternative to Uniswap. However, 0xMaki also stepped down last year and was followed by the CTO, Joseph Delong, as disagreements between the community, executives, and investor Arca, escalated. Arca teamed up with Daniel Sesta of Frog Nation and looked to restructure Sushi’s DAO and merge it with Frog Nation.

However, the proposed deal fell apart after it emerged that Frog Nation’s CFO was a co-founder of the collapsed Canadian exchange, QuadrigaCX.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.