Connext founder proposes 'Sovereign Bridged Token' standard after Multichain incident

1 year ago

EIP-7281 volition let token issuers to database authoritative bridges and bounds the complaint astatine which they tin mint tokens, perchance limiting losses from span hacks.

Connext laminitis  proposes 'Sovereign Bridged Token' modular  aft  Multichain incident

An Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) made connected July 7 seeks to standardize however tokens are bridged betwixt networks. The “Sovereign Bridged Token” standard, oregon EIP-7281, allows token issuers to create canonical bridges crossed aggregate networks. 

The connection was co-authored by Arjun Bhuptani, laminitis of the Connext bridging protocol. In a July 7 societal media post, Bhuptani claimed the protocol would assistance forestall issues similar the July 6 Multichain incident, which immoderate experts have described arsenic a “hack.

Today's @MultichainOrg hack is simply a bittersweet reminder of the systemic risks tokens look from bridges.

We judge these risks stem from a azygous underlying problem:

✨Token Sovereignty✨

We're proposing ERC-7281 (aka xERC20) - an unfastened modular to hole this.https://t.co/k9Vyd55Eb5

1/x

— Arjun | ERC-7281 arc (@arjunbhuptani) July 7, 2023

According to the proposal’s treatment page, it allows token issuers to designate a database of canonical bridges. Only bridges added to this database could mint an authoritative mentation of the issuer’s token. Issuers tin besides bounds the fig of tokens a span is allowed to mint. These parameters tin beryllium changed astatine virtually immoderate clip by the issuer.

In Bhuptani’s view, this connection volition guarantee that “ownership of tokens is shifted distant from bridges (canonical oregon 3rd party) into the hands of token issuers themselves” and volition bounds losses if a bridge’s information comes into question:

“In the lawsuit of a hack oregon vulnerability for a fixed span (e.g. today’s Multichain hack), issuer hazard is capped to the complaint bounds of that span and issuers tin seamlessly delist a span without needing to spell done a achy and time-intensive migration process with users.”

Related: $30B stolen from crypto ecosystem since 2012: Report

Bhuptani said the connection would besides assistance forestall idiosyncratic acquisition problems successful decentralized finance, arsenic each bridges volition contented the aforesaid authoritative token. Over time, this volition destruct the request for aggregate versions of the aforesaid token, helium claimed.

Stablecoin issuer Circle has already created the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to list authoritative bridges for its token, US Dollar Coin (USDC). EIP-7281 intends to instrumentality the basal conception down CCTP but besides tries to make this solution use “more broadly to each tokens,” according to the proposal’s notes.

Both Circle and Tether person blacklisted immoderate of the addresses utilized successful the Multichain incident, preventing $65 cardinal worthy of USDC and Tether (USDT) from being moved retired of these addresses.

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