QI Quadriga Initiative

Sep 2020 - SushiSwap Founder Withdrawal - $13m (Global)

"Sushi is a DeFi protocol that is completely community-driven, serving up delicious interest for your held crypto assets." "On Sushi, you can take advantage of passive-income providing DeFi tools such as liquidity providing, yield farming and staking. Furthermore, due to the decentralized nature of being an AMM (Automated Market Maker), Sushi has fewer hurdles to execute your cryptocurrency trades and all fees are paid to the users who provided liquidity, just as it should be!"

“… we have designed SushiSwap as the next step forward in the Uniswap protocol design. Taking Uniswap’s elegant core design, we’ve added community-oriented features that we believe help improve the design of the protocol, as well as provide further benefits to the actors involved.”

"This coin followed in the footsteps of other YFI clones with its low supply and yield farming. When it was listed on Uniswap on August 26, it started at a high of $128 before finding a bottom at $0.69. In less than a week of its launch, it had been listed on Binance peaking at $15.96. On CoinMarketCap, it hit rank 74."

"As reported Monday by CoinDesk’s Will Foxley, a pseudonymous developer who goes by “Chef Nomi” launched the SushiSwap protocol in late August, and it was quickly cast as a “vampire protocol” because its inherent design intended to siphon away liquidity from a competing trading platform, Uniswap."

"The project quickly attracted more than $1 billion of collateral with a technique known as “zombie mining,” The market value of the associated SUSHI tokens surged roughly 500-fold in a matter of days to more than $300 million."

"In somewhat of a prophecy, a Twitter poster going by the name of Sasa pointed out [just prior] that Chef Nomi had $27 million worth of SUSHI “ready to be dumped on the SUSHI/ETH pool.”"

"SushiSwap was the victim of the classic “rug pull” attack when its founder Chef Nomi removed roughly 37,400 ETH from the project’s development fund and sent it to his personal wallet." "[O]n Saturday, SUSHI investors learned that Chef Nomi had unexpectedly cashed out of tokens in exchange for 37,400 ether (ETH) worth about $13 million. SUSHI prices crashed before recovering somewhat after Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, reportedly took control of the project."

"The anonymous creator removing a large chunk of liquidity is what many have come to meme a ‘rug pull’. The dev share contract held more than 2.5M SUSHI along with 20k ETH. After removing nearly half the liquidity from the SUSHI/ETH pool, 2.5M SUSHI was sold for 18k ETH, amounting to roughly $6M of profits at the time of sale and a $7M stash from the other half of the devshare liquidity. In total, Chef Nomi made off with roughly $13M."

"Tired of the non-stop complaints about SUSHI from the community, Chef Nomi decided to remove his liquidity from the SUSHI/ETH pool by converting 5.02 million tokens to Ether, worth $14 million at the time."

"Chef Nomi tried to justify the move by comparing it to what Litecoin founder, Charlie Lee, did when he sold his tokens at the peak of the 2017 bull market." "As anyone could have guessed, the community is now up and arms, claiming that the entire project is now toast due to a loss of trust. Still, Chef Nomi is chugging on, deploying the contracts for the forthcoming SushiSwap migration set to take place tomorrow."

“I wrote the migration code. I did all the audits. I coordinated the largest LP pools ever. I created a large community. I sprung up 100s of LP scam projects. All in 1 week.”

"While things seemed bleak, FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), decided to step in. After receiving control of Nomi’s project, nine prominent members of the community were selected to be the holders of a multi-sig wallet that controls the project’s funds."

"Since that point, SushiSwap has been working without any glitches or controversies."

"After Sushi token investors were advised to lawyer up, Chef Nomi returned all of the stolen funds." "I have returned all the $14M worth of ETH back to the treasury. And I will let the community decide how much I deserve as the original creator of SushiSwap. In any currency (ETH/SUSHI/etc). With any lockup schedule you wish."

"The most recent development surrounding SushiSwap is Coinbase’s decision to list SUSHI. Coinbase announced that SUSHI deposits are open, but trading will begin on Thursday, March 11, at 17:00 GMT, only if liquidity requirements are met."

Further Analysis

ChefNomi was an anonymous developer who created the Sushi Swap protocol.

At one point, after there was criticism in the community, he decided to withdraw the development fund, and convert it to ethereum. He felt that he was entitled to this, as he had launched the project.

However, many individuals using the platform disagreed with this assessment. Some days later, he returned the funds to the treasury. It's not clear if he received any funds back for his role in launching the project.

How Could This Have Been Prevented?

This type of dispute is easily solved/prevented with a multi-signature wallet. It prevents any founder or developer from independently declaring that they should receive all funds in the treasury.

More Cryptocurrency Exchange Hacks/Scams/Frauds

Uniswap Fake Acala Network Token > > < < Soft Yearn (SFYI) Rebase Exploit

Sources/Further Reading

The DeFi hacks of 2020 - CoinGeek (May 18)
First Mover: SushiSwap's Billion-Dollar 'Rug Pull' Is Thriller to Crypto Geeks - CoinDesk (May 24)
Sushi price, chart, market cap and info | CoinGecko (May 24)
Uniswap Rises to Top of DeFi Charts Thanks to Rival Looking to Unseat It - CoinDesk (May 24)
The Rise Fall And Rise Of Sushiswap (May 24)
Chef Nomi Pulls the SUSHI Rug on SushiSwap LPs - DeFi Rate (May 24)
@NomiChef Twitter (May 24)
First Mover: SushiSwap’s Billion-Dollar ‘Rug Pull’ Is Thriller to Crypto Geeks (May 24)
The rise of SushiSwap: How a crypto copycat made it to Coinbase (May 24)
Founder of SushiSwap DeFi Protocol Cashes Out - Decrypt (May 24)
Ethereum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Etherscan (May 24)
@cicnos1 Twitter (May 24)
$27m of Sushi Funds Could Disappear at the DROP of a Chef's Hat (May 24)
@NomiChef Twitter (May 24)
@NomiChef Twitter (May 24)
DeFi SushiSwap creator returns $14m in ETH to project after causing coin crash | ZDNet (Jul 24)
@amanusk_ Twitter (Jun 26)
@amanusk_ Twitter (Jun 26)
@amanusk_ Twitter (Jun 26)


Join Us!

Name: Email:

t.me/QuadrigaInitiative /r/QuadrigaInitiative @QuadrigaInit info@quadrigainitiative.com

Sign-Ups: 92.1%

Your use of this site/service accepts the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. This site is not associated with Ernst & Young, Miller Thompson, or the Official Committee of Affected User. For questions or enquiries, email info@quadrigainitiative.com.