SushiSwap CTO threatens to quit amid internal disagreements

CTO of the decentralized exchange SushiSwap, Joseph Delong, did not rule out leaving the project if compensation levels do not rise and key developers are granted greater authority.

I am going to ship Trident, and if you do not give us the autonomy to continue operations, the capability to form leadership, and increase compensation across the board I will leave.

— Joseph Delong 🔱 (@josephdelong) December 5, 2021

“I will leave Trident [the new DEX, whose development is led by the team], if we do not have greater autonomy, the ability to take on leadership and higher compensation,”, — he wrote.

Until September, the project was led by the user 0xMaki. He took control from FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried after the scandal surrounding the disappearance of the anonymous founder known as Chef Nomi. The latter took $14 million from the developers’ fund, and then returned it with apologies.

It emerged that 0xMaki’s departure may not have been voluntary. In a vote in the internal Telegram group, 10 of 11 developers voted for his “expulsion.”

Should we ask @0xMaki come back to @SushiSwap core team? pic.twitter.com/cgE4jUiL6l

— WeWantMakiBack (@makibacknow) November 23, 2021

This was confirmed by a screenshot of a deleted post on the forum.

The full pic. Everything here is true. pic.twitter.com/Ot3Km0DXO7

— WeWantMakiBack (@makibacknow) November 25, 2021

Along with 0xMaki, some other team members left as well.

“It seems that greed, unfortunately, has taken the upper hand over the community”, — explained the DEX developer going by the nickname BoringCrypto.

With the $SUSHI price already down anyway, time for a little thread about the shenanigans behind the scenes at Sushi. @0xMaki was kicked out. Most of the good devs have left. Seems like greed sadly has taken over from community. A thread:

— BoringCrypto (@Boring_Crypto) December 4, 2021

Among those mentioned by BoringCrypto are 0xMaki, 0xKeno, LevxApp and Mudit__Gupta.

Who are all the people in Sushi core right now, and what are their roles. Who has left and why? Pretty sure @0xMaki, @0xKeno, @LevxApp, @Mudit__Gupta are not part of Sushi right now.

— BoringCrypto (@Boring_Crypto) December 4, 2021

The SushiSwap CTO described the situation as ‘absurd defamation’. In the thread he did not agree with some of the statements above. Delong explained that the departure of several developers was linked to their low productivity or, as in the case of BoringCrypto, an inability to work in a team.

Delong did not rule out quitting the project if the community does not back the team.

“I will, without conflict, hand over all the accounts and go and build something equally as successful. And you can find someone else to bully”, — he wrote.

I will peacefully transfer all the accounts and go and build something equally as successful and you can find someone else to bully.

— Joseph Delong 🔱 (@josephdelong) December 5, 2021

Delong cited the insufficient compensation of $300,000 for a year of work. He put before the community for consideration a proposal to allocate 200,000 SUSHI ($1.2 million at the time of writing) as a one-off grant to each of the 19 developers of the project.

Of the 96 who voted, more than two-thirds opposed.

In an official statement, the SushiSwap team acknowledged that it had stopped cooperating with the lead developer in Asia due to his “unprofessional behaviour.” In particular, he was named as the spreader of accusations about the dismissal of 0xMaki.

Earlier, in August the SushiSwap team joined forces with colleagues from Aave and Curve in the initiative for the global rollout of DeFi.

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