SushiSwap (SUSHI) is a decentralized exchange (DEX) — a place to swap tokens on-chain without a middleman — that launched in 2020 as a fork of Uniswap and briefly rivaled it. It expanded into a broad, multi-chain platform spanning dozens of blockchains, offering swaps and other DeFi tools. SUSHI is its governance token, used to vote on the protocol and share in some of its economics. Once a top-tier DeFi name, Sushi has struggled through leadership turmoil and a steady loss of ground to competitors, and today it's very much a small-cap living in Uniswap's shadow. Its identity is 'the scrappy multi-chain DEX' still fighting for relevance.
Where it stands today: the picture is challenging and honest. Sushi's total value locked has collapsed from over $8 billion at its 2021 peak to a small fraction of that, and Uniswap has decisively pulled ahead in the blue-chip, deep-liquidity segment. It's still shipping — it launched on Solana (via Jupiter's system) and is building specialized products (perps, a Solana-focused DEX, tools to reduce liquidity-provider losses). But two red flags stand out: in late 2025 a token-emissions increase (tripling new SUSHI issuance) was passed by a vote reportedly controlled ~99.9% by a single wallet, a governance-concentration concern; and a user lost around $50 million in a 2026 mishap when a trade routed to a near-empty Sushi pool with massive slippage. So today it's a faded but still-operating multi-chain DEX with real products in the pipeline, weighed down by inflation, governance and reputational issues.