SUSHI is the governance and fee-sharing token of SushiSwap, the DEX that made crypto history in September 2020 by executing a “vampire attack” on Uniswap. The anonymous developer “Chef Nomi” forked Uniswap’s code, added SUSHI token rewards for liquidity providers, and migrated over $1 billion in Uniswap liquidity to SushiSwap within days. Unlike Uniswap at the time, SUSHI entitles holders to 0.05% of all trading fees — making it a fee-bearing governance token. SushiSwap subsequently became one of the most deployed DEXes across EVM-compatible chains.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | SUSHI |
| Price | $0.20 |
| Market Cap | $55.50M |
| 24h Change | +4.2% |
| Circulating Supply | 273.01M SUSHI |
| Max Supply | 250.00M SUSHI |
| All-Time High | $23.38 |
| Contract (Ethereum) | 0x6b35...0fe2 |
| Contract (Harmony Shard 0) | 0xbec7...552a |
| Contract (Fantom) | 0xae75...77cc |
| Contract (Near Protocol) | 6b3595...near |
| Contract (Base) | 0x7d49...afba |
| Contract (Celo) | 0xd15e...3226 |
| Contract (Energi) | 0x32af...a23a |
| Contract (Sora) | 0x0078...3be2 |
| Contract (Katana) | 0x17bf...b0ab |
| Contract (Polygon Pos) | 0x0b3f...a50a |
| Contract (Binance Smart Chain) | 0x9479...24c4 |
| Contract (Arbitrum One) | 0xd4d4...c61a |
| Contract (Solana) | ChVzxW...pypj |
| Contract (Avalanche) | 0x37b6...4f76 |
How It Works
SushiSwap is fundamentally an AMM DEX using the same x*y=k constant product formula as Uniswap V2. Its differentiators:
The SushiBar (xSUSHI):
- Users stake SUSHI to receive xSUSHI
- 0.05% of all trading fees (out of the 0.30% total) are used to buy SUSHI from the market and distribute them to xSUSHI holders
- xSUSHI appreciates in SUSHI value over time as fees accumulate
- This creates real buy pressure and yield from protocol revenue
Multi-chain deployment:
SushiSwap deployed on Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Fantom, and many other EVM chains early, giving it a liquidity presence across the ecosystem before most competitors.
BentoBox and Kashi:
SushiSwap’s BentoBox is a token vault that earns yield on idle assets while they’re deployed as DEX liquidity. Kashi is an isolated lending market built on BentoBox. These form a wider DeFi ecosystem around the core DEX.
Tokenomics
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Max supply | 250,000,000 SUSHI |
| Current circulating supply | ~130M–140M SUSHI (as of 2024) |
| Fee to xSUSHI stakers | 0.05% of every swap |
| Fee to liquidity providers | 0.25% of every swap |
| Initial emission | Rewards highly concentrated then decaying |
SUSHI has disinflationary emissions — early liquidity mining rewards were high, then declined per schedule. The community treasury controls remaining unissued supply.
History
- Aug 2020 — Anonymous developer “Chef Nomi” forks Uniswap, adds SUSHI token incentives; TVL rapidly grows as LPs chase yields
- Sep 2020 — The vampire attack executes: $1B+ of Uniswap LP tokens migrate to SushiSwap; Chef Nomi is revealed, then sells $13M of SUSHI from the dev fund, cratering the price
- Sep 2020 — FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried takes over development; Chef Nomi returns the funds; SBF migrates liquidity and stabilizes the protocol
- Late 2020 — Jiro Ono (community) takes control; SushiSwap becomes a community-governed DAO
- 2021 — SushiSwap expands to 10+ chains, launches BentoBox and Kashi, and gains traction on non-Ethereum networks where Uniswap wasn’t yet deployed
- 2022 – 2023** — SushiSwap faces ongoing governance drama; multiple head chefs cycle through; the DAO faces a treasury management crisis
- 2023 — Jared Grey leads restructuring; SushiSwap V3 launches with concentrated liquidity (competing with Uniswap V3)
- 2024 — SushiSwap Sushi V3 continues, remains one of the most multi-chain DEXes by deployment count
Common Misconceptions
“SushiSwap stole Uniswap’s code.” Uniswap V2 was deliberately open-source. Chef Nomi forked a permissively licensed codebase — this was technically legal. However, the ethics of launching immediately after observing Uniswap’s success, without contributing to it, sparked lasting debate.
“The founder exit-scammed.” Chef Nomi sold dev fund SUSHI (perceived as an exit scam) but ultimately returned the ~$14M equivalent in ETH, claiming it was intended as developer compensation. The funds were returned before any legal compulsion.