SushiSwap Transfers Admin Keys to Community Multisig

Over the weekend, the community-driven Uniswap fork – SushiSwap – faced an existential crisis when the anon founder Chef Nomi market sold $6M worth of SUSHI. Now, the project’s admin keys are being transferred to FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried as a middle ground towards a community-operated multi-sig.

I’m checking this but believe it to be real. Assuming so:

Thanks, @NomiChef, for doing what was necessary.

And thanks to the community for supporting me.

Multisig coming soon. https://t.co/p4i39PUrxx

— SBF (@SBF_Alameda) September 6, 2020

Things looked bleak for Sushiswap until SBF, the prominent founder of FTX and SERUM, proposed a way forward for SushiSwap without Chef Nomi at the helm. Leading up to the move, Sam had been active in Sushiswap community channels, offering up 5M SUSHI if the community elects to build SushiSwap’s native AMM on SERUM instead of Ethereum.  Now, a vote is underway to elect new multi-sig signers. Details on the current voting process can be seen via Sushiswap’s snapshot page.

Interestingly enough, the multisig signers are being decided through unique votes, with the community being able to signal “yes” or “no” for 30+ candidates who have either put a bid in or been nominated by the community to act as a signer. This process seems to have renewed interest in the project, with projects like 1inch signaling their support.

#1inch is getting ready for @SushiSwap 🚀🔥🎂#DeFi pic.twitter.com/uMhbg98iQ3

— 1inch.exchange (@1inchExchange) September 7, 2020

What’s Next?

With the community now leading the project, it seems the SushiSwap migration will take place despite the drama surrounding Chef Nomi. The following graphic illustrates a concise visual of the series of events that transpired with SushiSwap since launch.

“Sushi shall be back in the community’s hands.”
by Sam @SBF_Alameda $SUSHI #SUSHI pic.twitter.com/dm7tilOJfK

— Coin98 Trading Analysis (@coin98_analysis) September 7, 2020

 

No matter where you stand on SushiSwap, it’s undeniably a fascinating experiment to watch pan out. There is also currently an active proposal out to increase SUSHI rewards for liquidity providers that do not pull out during the migration. If it were to go through, another 1 million SUSHI tokens from the treasury will be distributed to those who continue to stake liquidity through the migration.

A proposal from a community member to double the migration bonus: https://t.co/AMJVUDYvdD

— SBF (@SBF_Alameda) September 7, 2020

While adding multisig signers is a good stepping stone, it’s important to recognize that someone stepping up to sign transactions is not the same as a having a deeply engaged community working around the clock to make the best products possible. Still, we’ll be keeping a close eye on SushiSwap leading up to it’s migration this week.

Seeing a lot of projects promoting “multisig governance” like it is a feature. It is a stopgap for proper governance. But proper goverance takes time to formulate. Multisig is not a feature, its a crutch. If teams promote this as a feature, please think twice.

— Andre Cronje (@AndreCronjeTech) September 8, 2020

Until then, be sure to stay up with SushiSwap on Twitter.