Ethereum developer Arjun Bhuptani has proposed a new standard, called EIP 7281, to minimize damage caused during bridge hacks.
Cross-chain bridge hacks have resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in users’ funds. Certain challenges cause a setback in the security of bridges.
Ethereum Developers Brainstorm Over EIP 7281 Standard
Bhuptani, founder of the Connext protocol, proposed Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 7281 after last week’s $126 million Multichain exploit. With EIP 7281, the Connext founder hopes to standardize the bridging of tokens.
EIP 7281 would shift the ownership of tokens from bridges to issuers. And the issuers would be able to cap the minting rate limit of a particular bridge. Bhuptani explained:
“Token issuers decide which bridges to support for a given domain, and iterate on their preferences over time as they gain confidence about the security of different options.
In the event of a hack or vulnerability for a given bridge (e.g. today’s Multichain hack), issuer risk is capped to the rate limit of that bridge and issuers can seamlessly delist a bridge without needing to go through a painful and time-intensive migration process with users.”
But other developers raised concerns about the idea of giving token issuers power to decide which bridge to support. An Ethereum developer, “a6-dou” wrote:
“Token issuers may have biases or motivations that go beyond technical metrics when selecting bridges, which could influence users’ decision-making. This could reduce diversity and limit the number of available options for users.”
However, Bhuptani clarified:
“In the current paradigm, token issuers are already making decisions on bridges based on liquidity rather than on security or technical reasons. The ERC-7281 approach explicitly removes moats around concentration of funds as issuers now solely base bridge decisions around the rate limits they are comfortable with.”
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