0xMaki

In 2020, Chef Nomi, the pseudonymous founder of the decentralized exchange SushiSwap, cashed out the project’s native tokens for about $14 million worth of ether and left, drawing accusations of an exit scam, and later returned the funds. 0xMaki then became SushiSwap’s de facto leader and was widely seen as the main driver of the project’s subsequent growth.⁠[1][2][2]

0xMaki did not reveal his identity in an interview for UniWhales members. He said he had not been in contact with Chef Nomi for a while and that Chef Nomi was no longer involved in the project. On the planned merger with yearn.finance, created by Andre Cronje, he said the two projects shared the same goals and a focus on capital efficiency, and that while Cronje had many good ideas, finishing and maintaining projects was not his forte, which SushiSwap could take on. He also said SushiSwap would launch the lending protocol BentoBox in 2021.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

Lido DAO’s LDO treasury diversification proposal listed the institutions and angel investors set to buy LDO with ETH; the angel portion totaled 4 million LDO for 904 ETH, and the list included “0xMaki from Sushiswap.”⁠[3][3]

On September 14, 0xMaki’s address was removed from SushiSwap’s operations multisig wallet. On September 18, he announced on X and the project forum that he would no longer lead the project and would become an adviser to the DAO, saying he had always strived for Sushi to be leaderless and as decentralized as possible, and that he had put Sushi before his physical and mental health, his relationships, his family and his friends. At the time SushiSwap was the eighth-largest decentralized exchange, with about $4.49 billion locked in its liquidity pools.⁠[2][4][4][4][4]

He said that going forward he wanted to help the broader DeFi ecosystem without affiliation, that he still believed strongly in the Ethereum community and layer-2 networks, and that he was considering writing a book about his time at Sushi.⁠[4][4][4]

After SushiSwap’s internal disputes became public in December 2021, questions arose over whether 0xMaki had left voluntarily: a leaked screenshot from an internal Telegram group showed that then–chief technology officer Joseph Delong had started a poll asking whether to ask 0xMaki to leave, with 10 of 11 developers in favor, and a since-deleted SushiSwap forum post alleged that he had been forced out, blaming Delong and others. Former developer BoringCrypto wrote on X that 0xMaki “was kicked out,” that most of the good developers had left and that greed had taken over from community.⁠[5][6][5][6]

0xMaki himself had said at the time that his departure was voluntary. Delong called the claims “absurd defamation,” saying there had been a lot of drama within Sushi and overt manipulation from outside; the SushiSwap team said in an official response that it had stopped working with its Asia lead over “unprofessional behaviour” and named him as the person spreading the claims that 0xMaki had been fired. Delong resigned as chief technology officer the same month.⁠[5][5][6][7]

0xMaki wrote on X that it was launch day with the whole LayerZero Labs team, with months of work coming online to change how interoperability works across multiple networks.⁠[8]

The NFT marketplace Blur announced an $11 million seed round led by Paradigm, with 0xMaki participating alongside firms and individuals including eGirl CapitaleGirl CapitaleGirl Capital is a crypto investment collective made up mostly of pseudonymous members who appear on social media as cartoon characters and under assumed names. It is known for market commentary, research writing and early-stage investments, and has taken part in funding rounds for projects including Alchemix and Blur.Open the full entry and LedgerStatusBrian KrogsgardBrian Krogsgard is an entrepreneur and investor based in Birmingham, Alabama. Known in crypto circles as Ledger or LedgerStatus, he co-hosts the podcast UpOnly with Cobie and co-founded the NFT platform Flip; earlier he founded and edited the WordPress industry news site Post Status.Open the full entry.⁠[9][9]

Heroglyphs, which 0xMaki helped develop, is a protocol for Ethereum solo validators that uses “Graffiti,” a small piece of arbitrary data validators can include in the blocks they propose, to let complete validators earn, deploy and lease tokens and so encourage a more distributed validator network. His X profile says he is building for solo stakers.⁠[10][10][11][11]

X: Public account: https://x.com/0xMaki (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

Seba: Official website: https://seba.so/ (opens in a new window).⁠[11]