SushiSwap (SUSHI) is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM) protocol native to Ethereum that lets users swap tokens and supply liquidity without a centralized order book. SUSHI also exists as a bridged token on Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain, Base, Fantom, Celo, Solana, Katana, Harmony, and Energi.
SUSHI is the protocol's native governance token. As of 2026-09-03, SushiSwap's market capitalization is approximately $55.3 million, with a token price near $0.193.
SushiSwap operates as a decentralized exchange and automated market maker across a dozen blockchains, giving it a broad multichain footprint. Its protocol-fee growth also ranked in the 88.2 percentile among comparable tokens as of early September 2026, a signal of rising demand for the exchange.
Combined value locked across its core Ethereum V2 and V3 AMM deployments is approximately $72.3 million, with roughly $13.77 million in 30-day decentralized-exchange trading volume. SUSHI captures this activity as the token used for governance and, historically, for a share of protocol fees via staking.
SUSHI functions as SushiSwap's governance token, giving holders voting rights over protocol and treasury decisions through Sushi DAO.
Holders can stake SUSHI to receive xSUSHI, a wrapped position that has historically entitled holders to a share of protocol trading fees and voting weight in governance proposals. SUSHI is also used to signal support in Head Chef/CEO elections and major tokenomics or legal-structure votes, such as the December 2025 vote on the token's annual emission rate.
SUSHI has no hard-capped maximum supply; the project's original design envisioned a 250 million soft cap, but continuous emissions have already pushed supply past that level.
Net emission is inflationary, driven by ongoing DAO-controlled token issuance rather than a fixed vesting schedule.
SushiSwap had no ICO, IDO, or disclosed venture funding round. It launched in August 2020 as a fork of Uniswap V2's code, adding the SUSHI governance token with no premine or team allocation at inception beyond a 10% "dev fund" emission mechanism.
Its growth relied on a widely documented "vampire attack": users earned SUSHI for depositing Uniswap liquidity-provider tokens, and on September 9, 2020, roughly $1.27 billion in liquidity — about 55% ($810 million) of Uniswap's total at the time — was migrated to SushiSwap in a single transaction.
SUSHI originates on Ethereum, which uses proof-of-stake consensus, and secondary implementations of the token exist on Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain, Base, Fantom, Celo, Solana, Katana, Harmony, and Energi.
SushiSwap does not run its own blockchain or validator set; it operates as smart contracts deployed on each of these networks, with each network securing the token via its own consensus mechanism.
SushiSwap was founded anonymously in August 2020 by pseudonymous developers known as "Chef Nomi" and "0xMaki"; the original founding team numbered just three people.
0xMaki led the project until moving to an advisory role in September 2021. Jared Grey, previously CEO of DeFi platform Eons Finance, was then elected Head Chef and Managing Director by Sushi DAO token-holder vote (about 83% approval) and led Sushi for roughly three years. In December 2025, Grey stepped down and Alex McCurry, founder of "Synthesis" and a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, acquired over 10 million SUSHI (about $3.3 million) to become CEO.
SushiSwap is maintained by Sushi DAO rather than a single traditional company, through a three-entity legal structure adopted in 2022.
Switzerland was reportedly considered and rejected for this structure due to unfavorable regulatory and tax treatment.
SushiSwap is governed by Sushi DAO through on-chain, token-weighted voting by SUSHI holders, with staked xSUSHI historically also carrying voting weight and a share of protocol fees.
Day-to-day leadership runs through an elected Head Chef/CEO figure, while token-holder votes decide major protocol, tokenomics, and legal-structure changes. A December 14, 2025 vote raising the annual emission rate from 1.5% to as much as 5% drew scrutiny after a single wallet reportedly cast about 99.9% of the roughly 5.2 million voting power involved, with no votes against.
SushiSwap's most concrete recent update is the June 25, 2026 integration of Orbs-Powered dSLTP, a decentralized stop-loss and take-profit order feature for on-chain trading.
Following the December 2025 leadership change, new CEO Alex McCurry stated priorities of deepening liquidity, expanding protocol-owned liquidity, and strengthening tokenomics. Separately, a proposed governance restructuring called "Meiji DAO," described as potentially using non-transferable shares to replace Sushi DAO, has been discussed but remained unconfirmed as of the same period.
SushiSwap has undergone multiple audits across its history, including PeckShield around its 2020 launch, CertiK and Quantstamp in 2021, Zellic's 2023 review of SushiXSwap V2, and Halborn and Hashlock audits. Updated CertiK reviews covered Route Processor 3 and V3 contracts in 2024-2025.
An active bug bounty program runs on Immunefi. On April 9, 2023, a missing-validation flaw in the RouteProcessor2 contract was exploited for approximately $3.3 million; whitehat hackers returned part of the funds and the DAO compensated affected users from its treasury. Holder concentration is notable: the top 10 addresses hold 43% of supply.