Katherine Ross

Venture capital firm Nima Capital allegedly sold more than nine million Synapse (SYN) tokens, drawing the attention of market watchers and developers.&nbsp;



Synapse Labs acknowledged the sale and liquidity removal in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying that it is “investigating unusual activity on their wallets and are working to get in touch with them” though Synapse did not disclose who the “liquidity provider” was.&nbsp;



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">A Synapse liquidity provider sold their SYN tokens and removed liquidity today. We&#39;re investigating unusual activity on their wallets and are working to get in touch with them. Will update once there is more info. There was no security breach of the protocol or bridge. 4&mdash; Synapse Labs (@SynapseProtocol) <a href="https://twitter.com/SynapseProtocol/status/1698865047324291412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Nima Capital’s website has since gone offline, and Nima Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Their account on X is locked, meaning that users must be approved to follow the account in order to access their posts.



Users quickly connected the sale to Nima Capital after user Spreek <a href="https://twitter.com/spreekaway/status/1698812822203879744/photo/1">posted</a> a screenshot of the sale.



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">came from this mint (or bridge, idk how this token works tbh) 153 days ago <a href="https://t.co/cllIWf9zpL">pic.twitter.com/cllIWf9zpL</a>&mdash; Spreek (@spreekaway) <a href="https://twitter.com/spreekaway/status/1698814163475128479?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 4, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/luxury-homes/a-condo-on-new-yorks-billionaires-row-sells-for-around-80-million-6d1137db">reported</a> in August that a condo linked to Nima Capital was sold for roughly $80 million.  



On March 14, a proposal — which later <a href="https://snapshot.org/#/synapseprotocol.eth/proposal/0x16f029d625e7dd0f8997b3cecc4297dd4f3516424e41b129e5d2535d378c93d6">passed</a> a vote — was made by ModestFarmer to engage with liquidity providers and named Nima Capital as the first liquidity provider.



As part of the <a href="https://forum.synapseprotocol.com/d/269-advancing-synapses-liquidity-model-reducing-syn-emissions">terms</a>, Nima Capital provided $40 million of locked stablecoin liquidity over a 12-month period. In return, Nima Capital received a SYN grant for the “currently planned stablecoin emissions and 33% of bridge &amp; swap fees for the duration of the term, aligning a long-term capital partner with the DAO.”



The price of SYN fell following the sale, declining roughly 12% in the last 24 hours at the time of publication.



Synapse did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



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Synapse confirms investigation into liquidity provider’s ‘unusual activity’

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>
 
</div>



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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