Asset Management Giant GoldenTree Discloses $5.2M Investment in SushiSwap

GoldenTree has invested about $5.2 million the SushiSwap governance token, the asset management giant said in a SushiSwap forum announcement on Wednesday.

The company, which has about $47 million in assets under management, said it it had been "following Sushi for a while" and with the start-up of its crypto-focused GoldenChain Asset Management arm, was "psyched to be more active in all things Sushi."

Sushi was created as a copy of Uniswap, with added liquidity mining and governance features. Although aiming to improve on the original, it has appeared to be falling behind competitors.

Still, GoldenTree said in its forum post that "Sushi had incredible potential."

"Although the community has certainly been through some tough challenges, we’ve been amazed at the resilience of both the core team and the community in the face of these speed bumps, as you all have continued to build and release top-tier products."

The announcement came just three days after a leadership change. On Monday, Sushi community members elected Jared Grey as CEO, transferring power within the decentralized exchange after months of realignment and controversy surrounding the protocol’s governance.

The election followed a year of organizational difficulties at Sushi. In September 2021, the de facto CEO and founding member, pseudonymous 0xMaki, left for an external advising position. In December, Chief Technology Officer Joseph Delong departed to serve in the same role at NFT (non-fungible token) lending platform Astaria.

The firm has been ratcheting up its commitment to crypto for more than a year. In July 2021, the company added an undisclosed amount of bitcoin to its balance sheet, and earlier this year, it introduced its new digital investment strategy, including GoldenChain and a team of what it referred to as "10 crypto natives" the forum post.