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Polygon ’s Blockchain Hard-Forked Without Warning To Closed-Source Genesis. Why?

What’s going on at Polygon? There seems to be a disturbance in the force over there. Is the Ethereum Layer 2 project alright? Are they doing everything above board or is there something sinister going on? Are they even decentralized if they can hard-fork just like that? Or did they follow the proper procedures and their critics are just uninformed? Can we even answer all of those questions? Probably not. But we can present all the information available and let you all get to your own conclusions.

Are we all supposed to just shut up and forget about the fact that over a week ago Polygon hard-forked their blockchain in the middle of the night with no warning to a completely closed-source genesis and still haven't verified the code or explained what is going on?

— Nathan Worsley (@NathanWorsley_) December 15, 2021

Let’s start with DeFi Builder Nathan Worsley’s accusation. Or is he just requesting information? Worsley recently tweeted, “Are we all supposed to just shut up and forget about the fact that over a week ago Polygon hard-forked their blockchain in the middle of the night with no warning to a completely closed-source genesis and still haven’t verified the code or explained what is going on?” 

Related Reading | Polygon: Ethereum’s Friend Is Looking To Make Big Strides

The “middle of the night” part is arguable since everyone is in different timezones and the Polygon blockchain is everywhere. However, he cleared up why the issue is important, “Until the code is verified there are no security guarantees about the billions of dollars in assets the chain currently secures.” And tweeted proof of everything else, “Here’s the commit that was hard-forked into production.”

Here's the commit that was hard-forked into production the middle of the nighthttps://t.co/qMunI4WZxx

— Nathan Worsley (@NathanWorsley_) December 15, 2021

To add credibility to his claim, DeFiance Capital’s Zhu Su joined the chorus asking for answers. “Was this to patch a critical bug? Why and how did this happen?”

Why am I seeing 100x more solana fud than discussion of this? Was this to patch a critical bug? Why and how did this happen? https://t.co/GhY3eTYNtm

— Zhu Su 🔺 (@zhusu) December 15, 2021

Polygon Responds And Shows Receipts

The criticism got a response from Polygon’s co-founder Mihailo Bjelic. “We’re making an effort to improve security practices across all Polygon projects,” Bjelic tweeted. “As a part of this effort, we are working with multiple security researcher groups, whitehat hackers etc. One of these partners discovered a vulnerability in one of the recently verified contracts. We immediately introduced a fix and coordinated the upgrade with validators/full node operators. No funds were lost. The network is stable.”

2/2 ..vulnerability in one of the recently verified contracts. We immediately introduced a fix and coordinated the upgrade with validators/full node operators. No funds were lost. The network is stable.

A detailed blog post coming, we are finalizing additional security analyses.

— Mihailo Bjelic (@MihailoBjelic) December 15, 2021

Ok, that sounds reasonable. Bjelic also promised, “A detailed blog post coming, we are finalizing additional security analyses.” A question lingered in the air, though. And crypto enthusiast J. Vicente Correa asked it in the most direct way possible, “U can fork the chain by yourself and take all my funds as u wish?”

Absolutely not.

The network is run by validators and full node operators, and we have no control over any of these groups. We just did our best to communicate and explain the importance of this upgrade, but ultimately it was up to them to decide whether they will do it or not.

— Mihailo Bjelic (@MihailoBjelic) December 15, 2021

And Polygon’s Mihailo Bjelic answers in the most political way possible. “Absolutely not. The network is run by validators and full node operators, and we have no control over any of these groups. We just did our best to communicate and explain the importance of this upgrade, but ultimately it was up to them to decide whether they will do it or not.”

Fair enough. However…

MATIC price chart on Poloniex | Source: MATIC/USD on TradingView.com
A Node Operator Has Some Criticism Of His Own

In the same thread, Polygon node operator Mikko Ohtamaa blasted the way the company handled the whole thing and also showed receipts. “Next time it happens can you at least announce a critical update to all Polygon node operators. Now this looks super unprofessional and confusing for the community. It was not mentioned or pinned down in any major channels or publications.”

He got a response from Polygon’s other co-creator, Sandeep Nailwal. “This was a security update, and hence pre-public-announcement could’ve escalated things.”

Hey Mikko, this was a security update, and hence pre-public-announcement could've escalated things.

— Sandeep – Polygon – NAE (NOT Abandoning ETHEREUM) (@sandeepnailwal) December 15, 2021

Ok, that makes sense. However, Ohtamaa had more complaints. “Some bug fixes” for a critical patch is not good. If there is a critical fix you co-ordinate with validators.” Plus, he reinforced Nathan Worsley’s original complaint. “It’s really obvious it is a critical security bug if you do unannounced no notice hard fork in the middle of a weekend.”

It's really obvious it is a critical security bug if you do unannounced no notice hard fork in the middle of a weekend. So do not be dumb and think your users are dumb.

— Mikko Ohtamaa 🐮 (@moo9000) December 15, 2021

According to Ohtamaa, “there are multiple open source projects out there” that have done similar operations in a more effective manner. Someone asked what could Polygon have done better. He answered with a series of simple steps. 

  1. Prepare the patch privately.
  2. A few days before, announce a critical security fix is coming. All node operators need to be prepared.
  3. Distribute the patch at the preset time.
  4. Not downplay the criticality of the patch and make idiot-looking release notes.

Related Reading | How Polygon Sealed A $400M Deal To Get Ahead In The Ethereum ZK Rollup Race

So, is there something rotten at Polygon? We will have to wait for the “detailed blog post” Bjelic promised to know for sure.

Featured Image by Mae Mu on Unsplash – Charts by TradingView

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Axie Infinity Raises $860K While Their AXS Token Rises 55% In The Last 24 Hours

The Axie Infinity team is making moves. On the one hand, they raised $860K “through a strategic sale of our governance token, AXS.” On the other, they announced an in-game decentralized exchange and their AXS increased in prize by 55% in the last 24 hours. Great numbers all around that would satisfy and attract any investor. And speaking about satisfied investors, their original backers were the people invited to Axie Infinity’s private sale.

Related Reading | New To Bitcoin? Learn To Trade Crypto With The NewsBTC Trading Course

Let’s digest all that part by part.

Axie Infinity ‘s $860K Private Sale

The terms of the “strategic sale” state the following:

“Axie Infinity raised $864,000 in a private sale of AXS to strategic investors in the middle of 2020. These investors purchased AXS at a 20% discount.

20% of the private sale tokens will be unlocked during the AXS public sale. The rest of the private sale tokens will be unlocked quarterly over the next 2 years.”

In the press release, they disclosed the investors:

  • Arca

  • Three Arrows Capital

  • DeFiance Capital

  • DeFi Capital

  • Sparq Ventures

  • Animoca Brands

  • Hashed

  • Dialectic

as well as angel investors:

  • Alexander John Amsel

  • Alex Svanevik (Nansen)

  • Bashylok Oleksander

The investors seem extremely satisfied. In a recent tweet, DeFiance Capital’s Zhu Su announced Axie Infinity and their Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) are the company’s most profitable seed investment by far. “Craziest thing is at the time of the round, it was so undersubbed that many people invested just to support ecosystem without any expectation of returns,” he adds for color. 

$AXS @AxieInfinity I think is now @DeFianceCapital best seed investment ever and it's not even close

Craziest thing is at the time of the round, it was so undersubbed that many people invested just to support ecosystem without any expectation of returns

World is unbound growth

— Zhu Su 🔺 (@zhusu) October 2, 2021

The Great AXS 55% Rise

According to Chinese journalist Colin Wu, “Axie Infinity is launching a decentralized exchange and its price rose 55% in 24h. However, its trading volume and active users are declining.” He also said it was “the highest increase among top50 crypto.” At the time of writing, the number has decreased a little. According to Coinmarketcap, AXS is “up 42.90% in the last 24 hours.”

Axie Infinity is launching a decentralized exchange and its price rosed 55% in 24h. However, its trading volume and active users are declining.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 2, 2021

The recently announced decentralized exchange will eliminate the need to leave Axie Infinity to trade tokens. “People want to acquire and use their tokens from the same place without having to use a bridge constantly,” growth lead Jeff Zirlin told The Block” That website broke the Axie Infinity meets DeFi story, saying:

“The DEX could help keep users playing the game because it will remove certain frictions that exist for players who have to move their tokens off the platform to trade them. The DEX will be built on Ronin, an Ethereum-linked sidechain purpose-built for Axie Infinity.”

In the “Strategic Sale” press release, they quote Defiance Capital’s Arthur0x, who said:

“Axie has been building relentlessly since 2018 and we are impressed by their execution so far. Their vision of combining NFT, gaming and DeFi together is extremely exciting. We are thrilled to see Axie continue to be at the forefront of innovation in NFT gaming and DeFi space.”

AXS price chart for 10/02/2021 on Gemini | Source: AXS/USD on TradingView.com
Epilogue: Our Prediction

Just three months ago, when NewsBTC first covered Axie Infinity, we predicted: 

“In the long run, Axie Infinity could add new features to its game, a new game mode, more resources. The expansion of this universe is set to provide cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology with a real-world use case that nurtures the gaming experience.”

Related Reading | Jack Dorsey Plans to Build A Decentralized Exchange For Bitcoin

They did add new features, just not the ones we were expecting. 

At that time, AXS was trading at $17,47. Each token is worth $111.21 nowadays.

Featured Image: Axie Infinity screenshot from their press release | Charts by TradingView