A fresh bridged token introduced by cross-chain protocol LayerZero has ignited controversy, as nine prominent protocols within the Ethereum ecosystem have jointly criticized it. In an official statement issued on October 27, Connext, Chainsafe, Sygma, LiFi, Socket, Hashi, Across, Celer, and Router collectively decried the token’s standard as a “vendor-locked proprietary standard.” Their primary contention is that this standard hampers the autonomy of token issuers.
The participating protocols asserted in their joint communication that LayerZero’s novel token is “a proprietary representation of wstETH to Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Scroll, lacking the support of the Lido DAO (decentralized autonomous organization).” Furthermore, they underscored that it is deeply intertwined with “provider-specific systems” that are fundamentally owned by the very bridges implementing them. As a consequence, they contend that this arrangement engenders “systemic risks for projects, the quantification of which can be arduous.” In light of these concerns, the protocols have advocated for the adoption of the xERC-20 token standard for bridging stETH, as opposed to relying on LayerZero’s newly introduced token.
