<p>An anonymous leader at decentralized exchange protocol Sushiswap — Maki — is set to step aside from his position with the project, according to a well-placed source. </p> <p>Sushiswap gatecrashed the so-called decentralized finance space last summer, piggybacking on the success of predecessors like Uniswap. DEXes provide a way for crypto traders to swap tokens peer-to-peer. Such venues have seen their volumes surge over the last year as traders flock to platforms with less regulatory oversight and more tokens than centralized counterparts.</p> <p>It is not exactly clear why Maki — who effectively is the most important person in the Sushi ecosystem — is leaving. Decentralized networks are governed by a community of participants versus a corporate board and can have an impact on the makeup of protocol leadership. </p> <p>Maki's address has been removed from the operations multisig, indicated by <a href="https://etherscan.io/tx/0x10eb58b83b37cd3e18837c6d7a60200738229f03b977516e703daab1959601ca">this</a> transaction on the blockchain, but not the treasury multisig.</p> <p>Volumes on Sushiswap have leveled off after surging in May 2021. In August, the protocol saw traders swap $10.2 billion worth of tokens. </p> <p><img class="alignnone wp-image-117961 size-full" src="https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2021/09/Screen-Shot-2021-09-16-at-9.07.21-PM.png" alt="" width="2182" height="936" /></p> <p>At last check, Sushi was trading at more than $14.63 per token. It's up more than 850.4% over the last year, according to data from CoinGecko. The firm has a market capitalization above $2.8 billion.</p>