SushiSwap CTO reveals why the project isn’t scaling on Optimism anytime soon

The chief technology officer of the SushiSwap decentralized exchange has revealed why the protocol is no longer keen to scale using layer-two solutions from Optimistic Ethereum.

The layer-two solutions provider OΞ whitelisted several projects last year, including Uniswap and Synthetix, granting them preferential access to its platform as it was being built.

SushiSwap was also keen to get on this whitelist, but it was not forthcoming, resulting in a decision to delay any further development. In its official documentation, Optimism clearly states “contract deployments to the Optimistic Ethereum mainnet are currently restricted by a whitelist.”

In a thread on Wednesday titled “Why Sushi isn’t coming to Optimism,” SushiSwap chief technology officer Joseph Delong stated that being rebuffed for whitelisting means the protocol is not “super eager to deploy yet” on the layer-two scaling platform.

He cited “non-preferential treatment” as the reason after SushiSwap deployed the scaling solution to testnet and tried to negotiate with Optimism leadership.

Why we Sushi isn’t coming to @optimismPBC. Or at bare minimum is taking a wait and see approach that prefers credibly neutral platforms like @arbitrum. ǟ ȶɦʀɛǟɖ pic.twitter.com/Ce9Rl0So2f

— Joseph Delong (@josephdelong) August 11, 2021

He added that there was a long discussion with a “lot of dancing around,” so they finally had to ask whether SushiSwap, which was spawned from Uniswap as a clone in late August 2020, was going to be treated equally on deployment.

“That is when the team told us point blank that Uniswap ‘had to go first.’ Meaning we were boxed out of deployment until Uniswap.”

The protocol is taking a wait-and-see approach that prefers what he calls “credibly neutral platforms” like alternative layer-two solutions provider Arbitrum, which reportedly whitelists any project that requests it.

He added that he hoped the Sushi community supports this action and implored other projects to do the same “until Optimism makes any attempt at credible neutrality as an operator.”

Uniswap deployed its v3 protocol on Optimism in mid-July, with Uniswap founder Hayden Adams stating that the end goal was to fully meet the demand for low-cost, high-speed decentralized exchange (DEX) trading.

OΞ employs optimistic rollups, which rely on publishing the data on the blockchain, assuming it is already correct and allowing a challenge period. During this time, users can submit “fraud proofs” to signal that the data is incorrect, triggering a dispute that should result in a correction of the data.

Related: Many Optimistic Rollup solutions have ‘significant issues,’ protocol warns

Ethereum influencer Anthony Sassano said the news that SushiSwap had been rebuffed in favor of Uniswap and others was disappointing, stating that he was only long-term bullish on “credibly neutral and permissionless platforms,” before adding:

“There’s no place in this ecosystem for walled gardens — I hope the Optimism team rectifies this.”

Uniswap’s Adams then chimed in to defend the move to deploy to his DEX before SushiSwap. He said it was “manufactured Twitter outrage. Not everything is a conspiracy lol. I don’t really see why it’s problematic to finish planned launches before taking on new ones.”

Optimistic Ethereum also defended its position and the whitelisting mechanism, responding:

“We are whitelisting projects as quickly as possible and still maintain the safety of an alpha system. Uniswap deployed ahead of Sushiswap because they engaged with us 1.5 years ago, long before Sushiswap. First in, first out is not ‘playing favorites.’”

Other decentralized finance protocols and exchanges, such as already-whitelisted Synthetix, have already deployed to OΞ, enabling their users to enjoy high-speed, low-cost transactions on layer two. SushiSwap users, on the other hand, may be in for a longer wait.