A Unified Call for Open Bridge Standards & More!

Last Week In The Multi-Chain Ecosystem (23 - 30 Oct '23)

Oct 30, 2023

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Bridge Updates

1) A Unified Call for Open Bridge Standards

A coalition of nine interoperability protocols united to issue a statement on developing open, provider-agnostic standards, like the xERC20 standard.

This initiative aims to overhaul the incentive dynamics surrounding token-bridging security and prevent vendor lock-in through proprietary standards linked to the security model of the respective issuing bridge.

2) LayerZero x Lido wstETH Debacle

On Oct. 25, LayerZero announced that wstETH is now an Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT), backed by the support of Avalanche Foundation and BNB Chain. However, this development encountered a snag — the deployment of wstETH as an OFT hadn't received approval from the Lido DAO; it was still under consideration as a proposal.

This situation led to several key reactions:

Lido issued a statement declaring the bridge deployed by LayerZero ‘is not canonical and has not been audited or endorsed by the Lido DAO’.
Hasu, the strategy lead at Lido, characterized the unfolding events as "sketchy sales tactics."
The Lido community urged the DAO to approach the decision with caution, advocating for additional time to evaluate various bridge providers and not to make hasty decisions.
Nine interoperability protocols collectively called for the adoption of an open bridge standard to prevent vendor lock-in.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the performance of DeFi strategies across bridges.