After months of public infighting and turmoil, popular decentralized finance (DeFi) platform SushiSwap has cleared the first stage of community voting for an ambitious governance overhaul designed to streamline internal processes with a hierarchical, departmental structure.
The proposal appears to conclude the latest chapter in a remarkably turbulent story about the protocol’s fall, rise and fall again – a case study for the oncoming and so far largely ebullient era of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and their unique governance structures.
Over the past two months, SushiSwap has been marred by internecine spats, accusations of corruption in governance forums and opaque processes – a saga reminiscent of the project’s chaotic early days, when pseudonymous founder “Chef Nomi” nearly ended the fledgling experiment by seizing and subsequently returning a multimillion-dollar development fund.
Read more: ‘I F**ked Up’: SushiSwap Creator Chef Nomi Returns $14M Dev Fund
The turmoil has pushed the price of Sushi’s governance token, SUSHI, down as far as 78% off its all-time high of $23.28 that was reached in March. Uniswap’s UNI, meanwhile – the ostensibly centralized and venture capital-funded project SushiSwap was meant to act as an alternative to – is down just 30% over the same period.
The stumbles have likewise turned the project into a popular punching bag for decentralized governance skeptics who argue that SushiSwap’s failure to effectively manage internal strife highlights the limitations of DAOs in running competitive businesses.
In spite of the rancor, however, with $5.2 billion in total value locked (TVL), SushiSwap remains a jewel as a top-15 DeFi protocol.
Even after the exodus, according to core contributor Rachel Chu, there remains 22 full-time contributors and another 40 frequent contributors in the Sushi Factory grants program. A major upgrade to the core decentralized exchange product, Trident, is estimated to launch in January, despite recent delays.
In short, there are multiple reasons to believe that the protocol can turn its fortunes around – perhaps chief among them being that yet another comeback story could be tremendously lucrative for token holders.
State of play
Interestingly, SushiSwap’s overhaul may provide the first substantive example of activist investors swarming the virtual boardroom that is DeFi governance.
The bulk of the operations overhaul proposal comes from a pair of investors: Alex Woodard of investment management firm Arca and Dean Eigenmann of investment firm Dialectic, with additional input from Daniele Sesta, the prolific developer behind the Magic Internet Money and Wonderland cryptocurrencies, among other contributors.
Read more: Sushi Jumps 10% After Top Avalanche Developer Proposes Takeover
On Wednesday, the proposal passed a “signal” vote with over 88% approval, paving the way for an overhaul of SushiSwap’s leadership and organizational structure…
Read More: finance.yahoo.com