Sushiswap Parachain

[ericwang]

Hi all, I represent Parity Technologies, one of the development houses behind Polkadot, and am a fan and friend of the Sushi community. This is a proposal for a joint effort between the Sushi community and the Parity team to create a blockchain specifically for the Sushi ecosystem.

Summary

SushiSwap has created amazing products and market share in a short amount of time. The SushiSwap community has also been a leader in understanding the vision of cross-chain product implementations. However, the current cross-chain implementations of SushiSwap have largely been identical copies of products such as the Sushi DEX and SushiBar tailored towards various ecosystems.

We believe that it would be greatly beneficial for Sushi to have a standalone implementation that aggregates many of potential features of Sushi into one dedicated platform without competing with existing implementations. A Polkadot parachain would be a strong platform for such an implementation, boasting forkless upgrades to accommodate rapid iteration of latest features, interoperability to support interactions with different Sushi implementations, and performance to sustain high activities. The result is a product where the newest features are released and tested first, and one that aggregates the efforts across multiple blockchains into a more powerful ecosystem.

Motivation/Rationale

Current implementations of Sushi products across multiple ecosystems have largely been EVM-based replicas of the Sushi DEX and SushiBar for multiple ecosystems. This allows for different ecosystems to utilize the functionalities of Sushi, but beyond liquidity mining incentives, there are currently no unique features of these implementations that take advantage of the particular ecosystems implemented.

Polkadot offers unique opportunities for the Sushi ecosystem. We believe a suitable way to build within Polkadot is as a parachain. Parachains are blockchains within the Polkadot network with its own chain-specific code for specific use-cases. This would introduce two major benefits for the broader Sushi community and the Polkadot ecosystem as a whole:

1. The Sushi parachain is suited to be the home to test new products and changes for the Sushi ecosystem.

The Sushi ecosystem includes a broad range of products such as Kashi, Bentobox, Trident, Miso and more. In current smart contract implementations, upgrading existing products and introducing new products can prove to be challenging. With Substrate’s flexible runtime upgradability through WASM, we are able to introduce product changes and new products easily and rapidly, thus proving a home for the latest and innovation in the Sushi ecosystem. In addition, because it is a parachain, we can implement the products natively in runtime code instead of at the virtual machine level, which would give Sushi products a dedicated space and performance environment to maximize its throughput. This parachain would also support EVM through Substrate’s EVM modules.

2. Greater support for Polkadot and interoperability without competing against Sushi’s current Moonbeam implementation.

We believe that a sovereign parachain instance will greatly benefit the Sushi ecosystem as a whole. With native bridges to Ethereum, Sushi holders from Ethereum can benefit from the latest functionalities introduced in the Polkadot instance. In addition, the Sushi parachain can work in parallel with Sushi’s Moonbeam implementations since they function quite differently. Moonbeam currently has running code of the proven Sushi DEX, whereas the Sushi parachain will primarily incorporate different and more experimental projects.

As Sushi is a market leader in governance, we believe the finished parachain and its dedicated team (see next section) will be a great early example of a strong SubDAO within the Sushi ecosystem, opening up possibilities for similar SubDAOs to emerge if this is proven to be effective.

We do not make any recommendation on whether there should be a native token, as we believe this should be up to the Sushi community to decide. To become a parachain, candidates must compete with other parachain candidates in a process called a parachain auction. One way to win an auction could be through a parachain crowdloan, A crowdloan allows for Sushi community participants to loan DOT tokens to the Sushi parachain to win the auction. The hired team (see next section) should figure out how to best win the crowdloan.

Scope & Time

A blockchain requires a dedicated team to build and fully operate. As such, Parity will provide hands-on training for a hired team within the Sushi community to build, operate and update the parachain. This team will be initially co-managed by the key Sushi stakeholders and Parity but will eventually become independent. We have contacted various Sushi community members beforehand and have received their support and enthusiasm for the project.

Parity’s internal resources, which would provide initial support for the hired Sushi team to onboard onto Polkadot’s technology, could include:

1. Eric Wang (Head of Strategic Growth Projects)
2. Daniel Bigos (Solution Engineer)
3. Ricardo Ruis (Senior Solution Engineer)
4. Gautam Dhameja (Director of Delivery Services)

We propose the following order of activities:

1. The community votes to create a Sushi parachain.
2. Sushi community members works with Parity Technologies to hire a dedicated Sushi parachain team.
3. The substrate-based chain will be tested in Rococo, a testnet for parachains. It will also undergo security audits.
4. The Sushi parachain team, under the governance of the Sushi community, would put the Substrate-based up for Polkadot parachain slot auctions.
5. Once the parachain slot auctions are won, the hired parachain team will upgrade the Substrate-based chain into a parachain and implement various runtime modules.
6. Eventually, the Sushi parachain will transition into a SubDAO of Sushi.

With Parity’s help, we believe we can have a production-ready blockchain by Q2-Q3 2023, and we will participate in slot auctions shortly after.

Budget and incentives

To ensure financial alignment, we propose financial rewards to be distributed as follows:

For the Parity team:

1. 100,000 Sushi tokens for Parity Technology’s runtime engineering and BD teams, which will cover technical assistance, business development support, architecture design, continued advisory and recruitment. Paid fully upon hiring the dedicated Sushi parachain team.

For the Sushi parachain team:

2. $250k payable in Sushi tokens quarterly for rewards for a new Sushi parachain core team until parachain launch. This assumes an initial 5-7 person full-time team of salaries of ~$110k, costing $137-192k quarterly, with the remaining amount payable for Business Development, acquisition of a small amount of DOT for on-chain testing, etc.
3. If there is a native token (up to the discretion of the community and the Sushi parachain team), then some percentage of the native token for the Sushi team, distributed over some period of time. This will continually incentivize the parachain team over the medium term while the parachain gains traction and may eventually be transitioned into a truly decentralized DAO.
4. Up to $200k payable in Sushi tokens for runtime security audits.

Target user/groups

The parachain target users include

1. General Sushi users from other ecosystems
2. Polkadot-specific users who wish to utilize Sushi’s functionality.
3. Users who wish to use the latest features within the Sushi ecosystem

What does success look like?

A successful implementation would mean a live parachain with new Sushi products being successfully introduced within the parachain and increased activity in the Sushi community.

Poll
Should we aim to build a Sushiswap parachain?

• Yes
• No

Related links

Parachains · Polkadot Wiki

Parachain Slots Auction · Polkadot Wiki

Parachain Crowdloans · Polkadot Wiki

Bridges · Polkadot Wiki

Moonbeam <> SushiSwap Proposal

Overview SushiSwap has created an amazing community, achieved significant market presence, and attracted a large amount of liquidity in a very short amount of time. We see SushiSwap as a testament to the power of blockchains to create and organize new kinds of grassroots-led communities. Moving forward the Sushi community needs to determine how to differentiate its offerings from UniSwap and other DEXes, and how to keep growing the liquidity and user base in an ever-competitive environment. We …

[Julian_BCComparison]

This is a nice, highly detailed proposal. Appreciate esp the thought put into activities, costs & benefits.

We’d love to get @JiroOno and @jhoward’s eyes on this in light of the restructuring process.

As first mover, Sushi tapped into cross-chain opportunities and a large number of communities but has not yet managed to aggregate, foster and leverage said community or app developments. At the same time, there are many developments ongoing which need to be finished & brought to market. Many more will come up… This leads us to the question of the long-term Sushi vision and how this proposal could fit in.

• Ecosystem Approach: Full product suite across chains… but why not focus?

All ecosystems come with unique users (-> make sure to collect & integrate all) but some ecosystems are here for the long-run and come with fantastic network effects.

Next to Ethereum and its upcoming layer 2s, the main ecosystems are Polkadot (+ parachains) and Cosmos (+ main hubs) - and to a lesser degree BSC, Solana and Avalanche as monolithic l1 projects.

Overview of the layer 1 blockchain ecosystem from blockchain-comparison.com.

• Roadmap integration: Lots of different pieces - how can this parachain proposal add value?

Obviously, the highest priority is finishing products and positioning them well on the market. Nonetheless, we believe a parachain development could make a lot of sense for a variety of reasons

The parachain could function as a central Sushi community, liquidity & development hub and be leveraged for Sushi apps across (para)chains incl. synergy effects with other DeFi, NFT, cross-chain projects in the wider (Dotsama) ecosystem.

In addition to that, in our opinion, it’s also important that the very best projects/teams

• have some low tech expertise to tackle upcoming blockchain/DEX issues;
• consider MEV - which can be significantly reduced by running your own chain;
• think of long-term economics & governance of running own chain vs. being an app on chain xyz (e.g. Blockchain issues in tier 2 chains, costs vs. returns, efficiency of swaps, etc.)

Cheers to
Julian from ScaleWeb3

[SCNightshade]

@ericwang

We believe that it would be greatly beneficial for Sushi to have a standalone implementation that aggregates many of potential features of Sushi into one dedicated platform without competing with existing implementations.

Can you tell more nuanced what the benefits of sushi would be? And what would the financial benefit be for xsushi holders?

On another note, why would Sushi go for a parachain if Cosmos SDK could give the same benefit that is mentioned?

[ericwang]

Can you tell more nuanced what the benefits of sushi would be? And what would the financial benefit be for xsushi holders?

On another note, why would Sushi go for a parachain if Cosmos SDK could give the same benefit that is mentioned?

1. New products, dapps and features can be deployed on Bentobox and other systems in the parachain using Rust code. We can test and improve these features rapidly on Polkadot in prod. This is possible because Polkadot uses web assembly runtime natively which allows you to make changes even on the chain level without forking your chain or re-issuing new smart contracts to make changes. This works in conjunction with on-chain governance in Polkadot, which can be calibrated for the Sushi community in this parachain. Also, the Rust code can later be translated to EVM code and ported to other chains once its use-case is proven.
   For xsushi holders, some % of Tx fees and any fees generated would flow to them. In addition, staking fees would flow to them, if the AMM is deployed here as well.

2. A few reasons:
   A. Cosmos eco doesn’t have a team that would provide the kind of engineering resources and general support like Parity does.
   B. Cosmos doesnt support live upgrades with wasm runtime, so these features would not be implementable with Cosmos SDK. Cosmwasm supports wasm smart contracts but it doesnt have the same upgradability features like substrate does.
   C. Cosmos eco is copying and trying to implement shared security like Polkadot has. If you launch a chain on Cosmos and there’s not a huge amount of value backing it it’s very easy for an attacker to attack the chain. The parachain model solves this problem fundamentally through shared security.

[ControlCplusControlV]

Why would Sushi bear the extraordinary cost of launching it’s own chain? Security risks aside there are many other problematic aspects, the firstmost being conflict of interest against LPs and other chains who would now think twice about providing tokenized incentives.

Also I feel like this risk has nearly killed Compound when they considered launching their own chain, and caused dydx forfeit ground to GMX.

I also dislike where this proposal comes from, I see vultures coming to sell their product not community members trying to improve the community. The vote is also questionable (no seeing profiles, nor are people responding and voting)

As it stands, I see no reason Sushi benefits from a new chain which conflicts with its vision of being on every chain but not being it’s own chain. Sushi also should be investing in product engineering right now where it has fallen behind, not incurring risk to achieve feature pairty (which is best case scenario) while breaking compasiblity with the rest of DeFi.

Bentobox is a worthless idea on Polkadot with no good yield strategies to emplore there, no flashloans to benefit from, and no atomic arbs for bots to drive volume to. It also introduces censorship security concerns, MEV and a new can of worms problems. I don’t see the main benefit for this other than providing Polkadot a bragging point at the expense of Sushi

[ericwang]

Thanks for your valid concerns. I’ll attempt to address each one of them.

1. I don’t have any problems admitting that a Sushi parachain would provide bragging rights for the Polkadot ecosystem and that we have business reasons for wanting this to happen. But I do think such a product would be beneficial for both ecosystems.
2. I have used Sushi’s products for a while since its early launch but would definitely not consider myself being an active community member. I think that just because a proposal doesn’t come from the most active community member doesn’t mean it’s not valid. There are also other polkadot ecosystem members who are big fans of Sushi.
3. I am not quite aware who exactly voted for or against the proposal. I’m pretty sure most of it is organic or was made aware of through twitter and other media.
4. To my knowledge I was never aware that it was part of Sushi’s vision to not be its own chain, just that it was crosschain? Polkadot is designed to accomodate a multichain future and our eco was shilling multichain way before it was cool to do so.
5. This parachain is a completely separate product from the main products you guys have. So i don’t see it competing against its existing marketshare compared to, say, what dYdX is trying to do.
6. What kind of security risks are you envisioning? I think launching a cosmos chain would be very difficult with little cost due to the cost of launching and maintaining a network of validators before shared security is live, but on Polkadot it’s a different story.
7. There are a larger number of DeFi projects on Polkadot and there are continually more being deployed that could be utilized by Bentobox. Bentobox is also just an example of something that can be utilized. In reality, any experimental feature/product can be implemented on the chain and interact with itself or with other parachains / Ethereum etc.

Ultimately, we envision the parachain team/eco to operate somewhat independently but under the guidance of the Sushi community in sort of a subDAO. We hope it would be designed not to interfere with Sushi’s other product engineering efforts while giving it a better space to experiment with product innovation. We are OK with modifying parts of the proposal or not moving forward with the proposal if there a significant part of the Sushi community is against it.

[ControlCplusControlV]

I have used Sushi’s products for a while since its early launch but would definitely not consider myself being an active community member. I think that just because a proposal doesn’t come from the most active community member doesn’t mean it’s not valid.

But it does matter that you have a vested interest here. You may of course be a community member, but you also have a very strong incentive for Polkadot to suceed, even more so than if Polkadot benefits with Sushi dying in the process.

I am not quite aware who exactly voted for or against the proposal. I’m pretty sure most of it is organic or was made aware of through twitter and other media.

Unfortunately that does little convince others, and you being “pretty sure” things are legit that benefit you doesn’t convince me.

To my knowledge I was never aware that it was part of Sushi’s vision to not be its own chain, just that it was crosschain? Polkadot is designed to accomodate a multichain future and our eco was shilling multichain way before it was cool to do so.

It was never in it’s vision to be its own chain. But Polkadot only helps other Polkadot parachains no? Not the other 10 chains Sushi supports which this would only add complexity to.

This parachain is a completely separate product from the main products you guys have. So i don’t see it competing against its existing marketshare compared to, say, what dYdX is trying to do.

It’s not about competing, its that every dapp which has broken off trying to gain soveignty has nuked itself into oblivion as competitors who are composable pass them up. If you know DEXes you know like 50% of Uniswap’s Volume isn’t from its UI, and similarly Sushi as DEX’s value comes from being composed as a part of other dapps, not as it’s own standalone product.

What kind of security risks are you envisioning? I think launching a cosmos chain would be very difficult with little cost due to the cost of launching and maintaining a network of validators before shared security is live, but on Polkadot it’s a different story.

Being less secure than Ethereum where the DAO and core value lives, and not having to worry about it all.

There are a larger number of DeFi projects on Polkadot and there are continually more being deployed that could be utilized by Bentobox. Bentobox is also just an example of something that can be utilized. In reality, any experimental feature/product can be implemented on the chain and interact with itself or with other parachains / Ethereum etc.

But the Polkadot ecosystem is dwarfed by the ease of use being on EVM chains, and in size by Ethereum DeFi ecosystem among numerous others. We want to be easy to integrate with important ecosystems like Ethereum, not add further friction to them.

[ericwang]

Being less secure than Ethereum where the DAO and core value lives, and not having to worry about it all.

Most of Sushi’s current cross-chain implementations are significantly less secure than the potential parachain due to shared security.

But the Polkadot ecosystem is dwarfed by the ease of use being on EVM chains, and in size by Ethereum DeFi ecosystem among numerous others. We want to be easy to integrate with important ecosystems like Ethereum, not add further friction to them.

The Sushi parachain can support EVM as well through substrate’s EVM pallets, which have been used by numerous parachains so far.

It’s not about competing, its that every dapp which has broken off trying to gain soveignty has nuked itself into oblivion as competitors who are composable pass them up. If you know DEXes you know like 50% of Uniswap’s Volume isn’t from its UI, and similarly Sushi as DEX’s value comes from being composed as a part of other dapps, not as it’s own standalone product.

Sushi’s DAO should still be in Ethereum. This is a separate product and we don’t view it as an attempt to gain sovereignty. If the Sushi ecosystem desires to be soverign in the future that’s a separate discussion to be had.

But it does matter that you have a vested interest here. You may of course be a community member, but you also have a very strong incentive for Polkadot to suceed, even more so than if Polkadot benefits with Sushi dying in the process.

This can be said for almost any third party that proposes to the forum, including Layer 1 foundations. Polkadot eco doesn’t benefit from the parachain if the parachain completely dies - it would be a lose-lose situation in that case. The amount of engineering resources from Parity we would dedicate would also probably be worth alot more than what 100k sushi tokens are currently worth. We viewed that as a way to symbolically align incentives more than anything but are happy to get rid of the token incentives.

Unfortunately that does little convince others, and you being “pretty sure” things are legit that benefit you doesn’t convince me.

Parity has historically not had a reputation for being dishonest. We don’t intend to create that sort of reputation now.

[dabiiibii]

I don’t really see the value add of launching a Sushi Parachain. Seems like a distraction and the buildup of more tech debt and maintenance. Even more difficult since it’s not in Solidity.

What’s your projection of revenue / daily number of users? Seems like there should be a plan to recoup cost given the investment. I’m not convinced by your current criteria to measure success.