SushiSwap: influence, development, and trends

Before September 2020, Uniswap (and Curve, which is optimized for trading between pegged assets) dominated the decentralized exchange (DEX) space with virtually no other direct competition in terms of total value locked (TVL) and trading volume. The launch of SushiSwap, by pseudonymous founder Chef Nomi, changed the DEX landscape.

Chef Nomi saw an opportunity when Uniswap did not have a native governance token or any liquidity mining incentives. They launched a “vampire attack” such that liquidity providers on Uniswap could stake selected Uniswap LP tokens in Sushi and earn inflationary SUSHI rewards. The staking contract (aka MasterChef) contained a function “migrate” that would, when called, remove Uniswap liquidity staked in MasterChef and add them in a new AMM named SushiSwap. LP stakers who “farm” SUSHI would instead receive SushiSwap LP tokens after the migration.