Jack Kubinec

<div id="highlights-block_62e30a11f6d23" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The chain is a layer-2 optimistic rollup that financially rewards “guards” for verifying transactions</li>
 <li>“Rather than deploy your dapp on ten different chains, why not deploy it on the bridge protocol that’s already connected to every chain?” Synapse tweeted</li>
 </ul>
 
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Crypto builders are rushing to <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bridge-protocols-race-to-win-consumer-trust/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">restore trust in bridges</a> as cross-chain hacks have cost crypto users nearly $2 billion this year. But the Synapse Protocol hopes to win over disaffected investors by getting rid of bridging altogether.



Synapse Chain, announced today, would create a single-chain solution to cross-chain swaps. In theory, the chain could lower costs and increase security.



At a basic level, cross-chain bridges are protocols that transfer information between blockchains. The most common bridge use case is moving cryptoassets between chains. In that case, the bridge holds a user&#8217;s assets in a smart contract while deploying a “wrapped” IOU asset on the bridged chain.



Synapse Chain would do away with asset wrapping by creating a blockchain directly compatible with different cryptoassets, Synapse explained <a href="https://synapse.mirror.xyz/L6dBb7aXIJ1Ll5_sxP2bIJxVEYNd43ZzIV6dRylQJxw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in a blog post</a>.



For instance, if a user purchased hypothetical token XYZ on the Ethereum network, she could potentially use a Synapse-powered decentralized exchange (DEX) to directly convert ETH to XYZ without bridging tokens, saving on gas fees and increasing security.



Synapse’s “single execution environment” is built on Ethereum but theoretically is compatible with any blockchain.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">3/ By leveraging Synapse’s messaging system and bridge, Synapse Chain will become the organizational hub of all cross-chain activity. Rather than deploy your dapp on ten different chains, why not deploy it on the bridge protocol that’s already connected to every chain? <a href="https://t.co/XqZrLE8mSM">pic.twitter.com/XqZrLE8mSM</a>&mdash; Synapse Protocol (@SynapseProtocol) <a href="https://twitter.com/SynapseProtocol/status/1552665932027334657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 28, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The layer-2 uses optimistic proofs, where all transactions are assumed to be valid pending fraud claims from so-called guards.&nbsp;



Synapse believes optimistic verification will help the chain avoid adding to the nearly $2 billion in assets stolen from cross-chain protocols this year. Many hacked bridges held assets in multi-signature wallets that went light on the “multi.” <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/defi-cross-chain-horizon-bridge-hacked-for-100m/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Harmony Horizon bridge</a>, for instance, had five keys, only two of which needed to be compromised by the hacker.



An optimistic system requires every validator to approve transactions, as every guard tacitly verifies data when it does not submit an allegation of fraud. Synapse incentivizes guards to do their jobs by confiscating their SYN governance tokens when faulty transactions are marked valid, a mechanism known as slashing.



SYN jumped roughly 40% after the Synapse Chain announcement, trading around $1.70 Thursday afternoon.



Synapse’s optimistic rollup sequencer will initially be run in-house, though the protocol hopes to follow other layer-2s toward decentralization.



Still, <a href="https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">optimistic rollups have been criticized</a> for the tradeoffs inherent to the use of fraud proofs, such as a relatively long withdrawal period to move funds to the Ethereum mainnet, and Synapse is not the only team rethinking bridges. 



Axelar and LayerZero are other major players in the post-bridge space. In a Telegram message, LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino called the protocol “neither a bridge nor a blockchain” that moves assets directly between contracts.



Similarly, the Synapse Chain, which is expected to go live on a public testnet within weeks, doesn’t necessarily require assets to be bridged at all.



“A lot of the assets won’t have to be sent into the rollup, they can live on a chain and the messaging system will attest to their value,” said Synapse’s chief operating officer Max Bronstein.



“If you trust the security of the messaging system, [then] you trust that the asset in the rollup is the same as the asset on the native chain.”



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Synapse Chain Eyeing Bridgeless Asset Swaps

On today&#8217;s episode of &#8220;<a href="https://youtu.be/wkd0zxTkN-E" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Empire</a>,&#8221; Jason Yanowitz and Santiago Roel Santos are joined by Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder of LayerZero. LayerZero is an interoperability protocol that wants to connect every contract on every chain. This is a can&#8217;t-miss episode on blockchain bridges and the future of interoperability.



They discuss how LayerZero works, how Stargate enables seamless cross-chain swaps, the flaws of synthetic/wrapped assets and why the future will be cross-chain.



Plus, hear more on:



<ul><li>interoperability</li><li>being a crypto builder</li><li>how to get involved in building</li><li>and so much more!</li></ul>



Check out what they had to say in the video below.👇



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<iframe loading="lazy" title="How LayerZero Will Power A Multichain World | Bryan Pellegrino" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wkd0zxTkN-E?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<h3>About the show</h3>



&#8220;Empire&#8221; is a twice-a-week show. On Thursdays, Jason interviews crypto industry movers and shakers to talk about their struggles, bold moves and tough decisions. Friday&#8217;s weekly roundup episodes feature <meta charset="utf-8">co-host Santiago Roel Santos and cover the top news from the past week.



For any NPR or Guy Raz fans out there, you can think of &#8220;Empire&#8221; as a &#8220;How I Built This&#8221; for the bitcoin and crypto industry.



Subscribe to &#8220;Empire&#8221; today on&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empire/id1554930038" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4UTePv1CR3APdKOiosR3Iq" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spotify</a>. Watch episodes on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvER9nHSRN3wPkrDGTT5_8VC4Hjcq0f9U" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



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Podcast: How LayerZero Will Power A Multichain World | Bryan Pellegrino

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_614360bf86b5c" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Participation in the round includes Sino Global Capital, Defiance, Delphi Digital, Robot Ventures, Spartan, Hypersphere Ventures, Protocol Ventures and Gen Block Capital</li>
 <li>The funds will be used for the further creation of its endpoints across the ecosystem, Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder of LayerZero Labs told Blockworks</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Binance Labs and Multicoin Capital co-led a $6.3 million Series A funding round for LayerZero, a new omnichain interoperability protocol, the company announced Thursday. 



Participation in the round includes Sino Global Capital, Defiance, Delphi Digital, Robot Ventures, Spartan, Hypersphere Ventures, Protocol Ventures and Gen Block Capital. The project has raised $2 million in a seed funding round bringing its total fundraising to $8.3 million to date, LayerZero said. 



The funds will be used for the further creation of its endpoints across the ecosystem, Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder of LayerZero Labs told Blockworks.&nbsp;



LayerZero has not been launched yet because it’s currently under three audits that are expected to be completed at the end of October, but Pellegrino said he expects the network to launch shortly after.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="323" src="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg" alt="Omnichain diagram" class="wp-image-7992" srcset="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-1024x323.jpg 1024w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-300x95.jpg 300w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-768x242.jpg 768w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-428x135.jpg 428w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-470x148.jpg 470w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-389x123.jpg 389w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero-80x25.jpg 80w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-LayerZero.jpg 1139w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



“For cross-chain bridging and messaging, almost every existing approach falls into one of two broad categories. The first is having a consensus forming middle chain validate and forward messages between chains. The second is running a light node on-chain,” Ryan Zarick, co-founder and CTO of LayerZero Labs <a href="https://medium.com/layerzero-official/layerzero-an-omnichain-interoperability-protocol-b43d2ae975b6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote in a blog post</a>.



The omnichain protocol unites decentralized applications, or dapps, across blockchains. Most people think of cross-chains protocols, which is like having a bridge from Ethereum to Avalanche and while Ethereum has bridges to many other chains (BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Solana, Fantom, etc.), Avalanche does not connect to those, Pellegrino noted. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="458" height="189" src="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-8003" srcset="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo.jpg 458w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo-300x124.jpg 300w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo-428x177.jpg 428w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo-389x161.jpg 389w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-16-layerzero-logo-80x33.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 458px) 100vw, 458px" /></figure></div>



“So we might call Ethereum multi-chain but each of it’s connected chains are still siloed and have limited communication pathways. Omnichain is when all chains are connected to each other chain directly and natively,” Pellegrino said.



Its protocol runs an “Ultra Light Node” that provides the security of a light node with the cost-effectiveness of middle chains, Zarick said.&nbsp;



It connects disparate blockchains by passing messages between chains instead of centralizing security around a single hub, which allows for cheaper transactions but a single point of failure, it said. On-chain light nodes are secure but expensive while middle chains are inexpensive but less secure, Zarick said.&nbsp;



“I think most people can see that the proliferation of chains is not something that is going to stop anytime soon,” Pellegrino said. “We’re never going to have a chain that does it all perfectly, and different use cases have different needs. LayerZero enables dapps to take advantage of the benefit of each chain and utilize the best parts of them,” Pellegrino added.



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