According to Joseph Delong, rival DEX Uniswap received favourable treatment from the vendor of layer-two solutions, SushiSwap.
The chief technology officer of the SushiSwap decentralised exchange has explained why the protocol is no longer interested in scaling utilising Optimistic Ethereum’s layer-two solutions.
O, a provider of layer-two solutions, whitelisted many projects last year, including Uniswap and Synthetix, providing them privileged access to its platform during its development.
SushiSwap was likewise eager to join this whitelist, but was denied, necessitating a decision to halt further development. Optimism states explicitly in its official documentation that “contract deployments to the Optimistic Ethereum mainnet are currently restricted by a whitelist.”
SushiSwap chief technical officer Joseph Delong remarked in a Wednesday thread titled “Why Sushi isn’t Coming to Optimism” that being rejected for whitelisting means the protocol is not “super eager to deploy yet” on the layer-two scaling platform.
After SushiSwap deployed the scaling solution to testnet and attempted to negotiate with Optimism leadership, he cited “non-preferential treatment” as the cause.
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, 2021He noted that after a lengthy conversation and a lot of “dancing around,” they were forced to inquire whether SushiSwap, which was cloned from Uniswap in late August 2020, would be treated equally during 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 now taking a wait-and-see attitude, preferring what he refers to as “credibly neutral platforms,” such as alternative layer-two solution provider Arbitrum, which apparently whitelists any project that asks it.
He said that he hoped the Sushi community would embrace this action and pleaded with other projects to follow suit “until Optimism makes any credible attempt at operator neutrality.”
Uniswap launched its v3 protocol on Optimism in mid-July, with Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s founder, noting that the eventual goal was to fully address the need for low-cost, high-speed decentralised exchange (DEX) trading.
O makes use of optimistic rollups, which rely on the data being published on the blockchain with the assumption that it is already valid and allowing for a challenge period. During this time period, people may submit “fraud proofs” to indicate that the data is inaccurate, so initiating a dispute that should result in the data being corrected.
Anthony Sassano, an Ethereum advocate, expressed disappointment over SushiSwap’s rejection in favour of Uniswap and others, noting 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.”
Adams then joined in to defend Uniswap’s decision to deploy to his DEX before to SushiSwap. He claimed it was “false Twitter outrage.” Not everything is a hoax. I’m not sure why it’s a problem to complete planned launches before embarking on new ones.”
Additionally, optimistic Ethereum defended its stance and whitelisting process, 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.’”
Many other decentralised financial protocols and exchanges, such as the Synthetix exchange that has already been whitelisted, have also deployed on the O network, allowing their users to benefit from fast, low-cost transactions on Layer 2. On the other hand, SushiSwap users can find themselves with a longer wait time than usual.
