Uniswap's BNB deployment should use multiple bridges, claims LIFI CEO

The LIFI executive proposed that a team of four researchers be appointed to study the idea of a multi-bridge approach.

As Uniswap DAO’s vote to deploy to BNB chain continues, LIFI CEO Phillip Zentner argued in a February 6 forum post that the current proposal is flawed. According to him, the plan to use Wormhole as the sole governance bridge for Uniswap should be abandoned. Instead, he claimed that Uniswap researchers should work on a standardized system for using multiple bridges to handle governance decisions.

In the post, Zentner stated that LIFI strongly recommends “that Uniswap not select one bridge provider for its BNB Chain Deployment Proposal” because “no single AMB [arbitrary messaging bridge] is tested enough to be considered a robust and secure solution that a project of Uniswap’s size can solely rely on at this point.”

As evidence of this, Zentner reminded readers of the slew of bridge hacks the crypto community has suffered over the past two years, stating:

“Lest it be forgotten, two major AMBs were exploited in the past twelve months (Nomad and Wormhole), while LayerZero has also come under fire recently for its security model (Prestwich 2, L2Beat). We do not say this as condemnation, rather, we point this out to highlight just how difficult it is to build secure AMBs and the subsequent risks a dApp is exposed to by choosing a single bridging solution.

For this reason, LIFI wants to see “a multi-bridge, agnostic approach” to Uniswap governance. Zentner proposed that this could be accomplished by appointing a team of four engineers to study the subject and submit a proposal.

The LIFI CEO seemed to imply that the current proposal should be voted down and the date of BNB Chain deployment postponed until at least March 27. According to an image posted by Zentner, the Uniswap team had previously set a deadline of March 27 for a “final report published with community recommendations.” Zenter said that he believes this deadline can still be met, even if the current proposal is voted down.

Venture capital firm a16z recently attempted to use its 15 million UNI tokens to vote the BNB proposal down, due to the firm’s concerns about Wormhole bridge security. However, Metamask developer ConsenSys has used its 7 million UNI votes to support the proposal. The vote is scheduled to end on Feb. 10.