Sushi (SUSHI)
Unlock Schedule
Sushi (SUSHI) Token Unlock & Vesting Schedule
The unlock chart above provides a clear visual overview of the Sushi (SUSHI) token release schedule, showing when and how tokens enter circulation across investor, team, treasury, and community allocations. Understanding these tokenomics dynamics is critical for evaluating potential supply pressure, inflation impact, and market liquidity over time — key factors that can influence SUSHI price performance.
Each color segment in the chart corresponds to a specific allocation group described in the Allocations section below. Underlying assumptions and data models used to reconstruct this schedule are explained in detail under Assumptions, while broader utility insights and token use cases are covered in Tokenomics & Utility.
Tokenomics & Utility
Supply and Emissions
SUSHI began as a fair‑launch reward token for liquidity providers. For the first weeks in 2020, block rewards were high to bootstrap liquidity, then emissions decreased. Over time, governance made several changes to the incentive model. A pivotal milestone came in late 2023, when Sushi announced that the full planned supply of 250 million SUSHI had been minted and that emissions ended. This also led to the retirement of some older incentives and a shift back toward fee‑sharing with stakers. (sushi.com)
Fee Sharing and xSUSHI
Holders can stake SUSHI in the Sushi Bar to receive xSUSHI. On Sushi’s v2 AMM, a standard 0.3% swap fee applies; 0.25% goes to LPs and 0.05% is routed to the Sushi Bar, where it is used to buy SUSHI on the market for distribution to xSUSHI holders. This “real revenue” design links tokenholder rewards to actual trading on the protocol. The team temporarily redirected fees to the treasury under a prior measure known as “Kanpai 2.0,” but that program expired in late 2023 and the Sushi Bar model was restored in January 2024. (sushi.com)
Governance
SUSHI confers voting power on governance proposals. The Sushi DAO uses community discussion and voting to guide emissions (historically), approve product changes, and oversee treasury programs. In June 2024, Sushi emphasized that the DAO remains in charge of governance while Sushi Labs focuses on delivering products, clarifying roles without changing the community’s core authority. (sushi.com)
Assumptions
- Supply is now effectively uncapped.
Official docs indicate no hard cap and Etherscan shows total minted supply >250M as of 2025-10-27.
- Total minted reached ~250M by 2023-11-24 and emissions paused at that milestone.
Sushi’s official Nov 24, 2023 blog post states the 250M supply was fully minted and emissions would cease; later governance (Labs) reintroduced emissions and minted an additional 25M grant.
- LP bonus period amounts are exact; vesting for that period modeled as 1/3 immediate and 2/3 unlocking over 6 months starting April 2021.
Primary launch post defines 1000 SUSHI/block for first 100k blocks; Merkle Distributor posts and coverage describe the 2/3 6‑month vest and weekly releases; we approximated weekly unlocks as monthly linear.
- Post-bonus LP and dev emissions (2020-09-09 to 2023-11-24) are modeled as linear totals.
Exact per-block rate changes over this span are not consolidated in a single primary schedule; we model aggregate emissions linearly to match the declared 250M minted milestone, noting that governance adjusted rates downward over time.
- Sushi Labs grant dated 2024-04-17 as a cliff.
Implementation vote and news coverage in mid-April 2024; exact mint timestamp may vary; cliff chosen within the implementation window.
- Tail emissions start modeled from 2024-06-11 (Labs announcement) and sized as the on-chain supply increase after 25M grant.
Public communications referenced a 1.5% APR baseline; exact activation and rate changes not fully documented in a single canonical source, so we reconciled to Etherscan total supply on 2025-10-27.
- Dev/Treasury share assumed to be 10% of LP emissions for the 2020–2023 period.
MasterChef mint logic mints 10% of sushiReward to dev; later governance could have adjusted parameters, but we found no primary change log altering the 10% split for the modeled period.
- We did not add a separate allocation for xSUSHI fee distributions.
xSUSHI accrues SUSHI purchased from fees (0.05% of trades) and redistributes already-minted tokens; it does not mint new supply, so it is not a supply release mechanism.
- 1. https://medium.com/sushiswap-org/the-sushiswap-project-8716c429cee1
- 2. https://etherscan.io/token/0x6B3595068778DD592e39A122f4f5a5cF09C90fE2
- 3. https://etherscan.io/tokencheck-tool?t=0x6B3595068778DD592e39A122f4f5a5cF09C90fE2
- 4. https://www.sushi.com/blog/kanpai-expires-xsushi-revived
- 5. https://www.sushi.com/blog/merkle-tree-clawback
- 6. https://docs.sushi.com/dao/tokenomics
- 7. https://soliditydeveloper.com/sushi-swap
- 8. https://theblock.co/post/286661/sushiswap-governance-proposal-suggests-shifting-dao-treasury-assets-to-new-sushi-labs-vault
- 9. https://thedefiant.io/news/defi/sushiswap-creates-sushi-labs-council-and-multi-token-model
- 10. https://beincrypto.com/sushiswap-reveals-liquidity-provider-token-reward-distribution/
- 11. https://medium.com/sushiswap-org/sushi-second-course-2021-q2-update-379076fd586d
- 12. https://messari.io/asset/sushiswap/profile/governance