SushiSwap Serves Up Transparency With Doxxed “Head Chef”

Decentralised exchange (DEX) SushiSwap has elected a new and doxxed “head chef” Jared Grey to lead the protocol.

Grey, who is the the former CEO of defunct crypto exchange Bitfineon and DeFi yield platform EONS, won in a landslide, drawing 84% of the 13 million votes cast in the Sushi DAO Head Chef Election, with five “whale” wallets representing 95% of the votes backing Grey.

“We have some great products coming out, but need to continue providing more efficient pricing and fee structure for our users and liquid providers,” Grey tweeted on Monday after his appointment was announced.

“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,” Grey told CoinDesk, adding that SushiSwap has the “opportunity to lead” in those areas.

Data from DeFi Pulse indicates that SushiSwap is the seventh-largest DEX with a total value locked (TVL) of US$304.9 million. The SUSHI token is currently trading at US$1.101, down nearly 90% since the start of the year.

Past troubles with pseudonymity

Launched in August 2020, SushiSwap mounted what’s known as “vampire attack” on Uniswap, essentially forking the code of Uniswap and draining its liquidity. However, Sushi founder and then pseudonymous head chef, Nomi, performed a rug pull just a month later by withdrawing their SUSHI/ETH liquidity and offloading it for ETH.

While SushiSwap has since rebounded to become one of the top DEXs under the guidance of 0xMaki, another pseudonymous co-founder, the protocol still encountered significant obstacles in recent times, including the failed merge with Frog Nation after it was revealed that Frog Nation’s CFO was the co-founder of failed Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX.

By appointing a doxxed head chef, SushiSwap is potentially positioning itself as a more secure and transparent DEX. Its closest rival, Uniswap, has a largely doxxed development team working at Uniswap Labs, the VC-backed parent firm of Uniswap.