[DRC] Re-enable support for the wethDYDX Smart Contract (i.e., the Bridge) on the dYdX Chain side for 12 months

Proposals
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Background

  • 41.7M ethDYDX remained unbridged as of the effective Bridge closure

  • The forum post of affected ethDYDX holders has the most replies in the history of the dYdX forum and also one with the most views with around 3.8k views

  • High reputational risk for dYdX with some affected holders already planning legal action if the bridge is not reopened temporarily

  • Network security will not be affected, as the chain and its validators remain fully protected

  • Nethermind, the entity that submitted the on-chain proposal to close the bridge also wrote in the forum that with sufficient interest the dYdX community could reopen the bridge in the future: ‘If this proposal passes and the Bridge support is ceased, the dYdX community—if there is sufficient interest—could consider developing a procedure and submitting a governance proposal to migrate any remaining ethDYDX on Ethereum to DYDX on the dYdX Chain’.

  • There is some risk for validators and/or token holders for re-enabling the bridge because: (a) some ethDYDX holder sold at a loss after bridge closure, (b) there may be a rush to acquire ethDYDX in DeFi pools to farm the bridge re-opening

  • The dYdX Foundation said in the forum that: ‘Any reconsideration of re-enabling the bridge would need to come from a new governance proposal and be approved by the dYdX community’ also the dYdX Foundation suggested the following steps:

-Align on a potential solution on the dYdX Forum

-Introduce a text proposal to gauge dYdX community alignment, and

-If the text proposal passes, and if necessary, follow up with another on-chain proposal

Proposed solution

  1. ‘Built-in boolean flag, is_disabled, which effectively disables the bridge if turned true’, so it will be changed back to false and keep the bridge open for 12 months

  2. All validators need to be aware that they need to run an eth node for the wethDYDX Smart Contract to function

  3. Additionally, the dYdX Ops subDAO is recommended to update the bridge interface bridge.dydx.trade to allow bridging for the 12 months reopening of the bridge

FAQs

Do DYDX stakers need to do anything?

No, there are no changes or action required from DYDX stakers beyond voluntary participation in the forum discussion and on-chain governance voting

What do dYdX validators need to do?

Review the proposal and participate in the forum discussion

Participate in the on-chain governance process

Run an eth node for the wethDYDX Smart Contract to function

Are any dYdX entities affected by this proposal?

dYdX Ops subDAO is recommended to update the bridge interface bridge.dydx.trade to allow bridging for the 12 months reopening of the bridge

How many DYDX tokens remained unbridged?

~41.7M DYDX

For how long will the bridge be re-enabled?

It is suggested 12 months in the proposal

Are there risks for dYdX for not re-enabling the bridge temporarily?

Yes, potentially important reputational and regulatory risks

What is the stance of the dYdX Foundation?

The dYdX Foundation does not take positions on proposals, participate in governance or support governance proposals. As with any protocol change, such initiatives must be community-driven and follow the governance proposal lifecycle. However, it is the dYDX Foundation responsibility to identify and clarify any inaccuracies or statements that could negatively impact the dYdX community

Timeline

3-8 October work on draft proposal

9 October publish proposal on the dYdX forum

10-27 October forum discussion

28 October on-chain text governance proposal

If the text governance proposal is approved, submit shortly after main proposal to re-enable the bridge for 12 months

Validators supporting the joint proposal

This is a joint community governance proposal by the following dYdX Chain validators: Cosmic Validator, CryptoPlaza, TTT, Smartstake, Stakecito

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Thank you to the validators and community members who put time and effort into preparing and discussing this proposal. We appreciate the thoughtful framing and understand the rationale and potential benefits outlined for re-enabling the bridge.

That said, we believe this proposal carries significant implications that require careful consideration. There are meaningful tradeoffs involved in reopening the bridge. For instance, while reputational risk and potential legal action from affected holders have been mentioned, there is no certainty that these actions will—or will not—materialise if the bridge remains closed or is reopened. Likewise, reopening the bridge could expose the ecosystem to new legal or compliance risks that are difficult to quantify at this stage.

In short, both options—keeping the bridge closed or reopening it—come with their own sets of tradeoffs and risks that the community should weigh carefully.

Ultimately, we believe this is a decision for the community to make, and we will support whichever direction the community decides to pursue.

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Proposal in Support of Reopening the dYdX Bridge

We sincerely appreciate the attention and support given to the current proposal - it is very important for the entire dYdX community and shows that the project is not indifferent to its users.

I am the author of the previous proposal on reopening the bridge - DRC: “Migration Solution for ERC-20 DYDX Holders”, which received more than 3.8k views and 3.8k reactions - making it one of the most discussed DRCs in the forum’s history, while 95% of other DRCs barely reach 100 views. This clearly demonstrates that the issue is truly urgent and requires proper attention and correction.

Given the resonance that this DRC caused, it becomes evident that the delegators who voted to close the bridge made a mistake that led to negative consequences. It is normal to make mistakes - but just as any technical bug caused by a faulty update is fixed through a follow-up patch, this governance decision should also be corrected by reopening the bridge, since it has caused strong backlash and dissatisfaction among community members.

1. On Legal Risks

We are convinced that there is no ground for legal or regulatory risks if the bridge is reopened, because users would simply regain rightful access to their funds - leaving no basis for complaints or claims. This is not about granting new rights but about restoring access to legitimately owned assets. It is a matter of fairness and accountability that carries no technical or financial risks for the protocol.

On the contrary, refusing to reopen the bridge will demonstrate to outside observers that a closed circle of validators decided to block the funds of 45,000 retail users, which would inevitably trigger a new wave of complaints, public criticism, and filings with regulatory authorities.

The conclusion from this point is clear: there are no risks in reopening the bridge, while keeping it closed continues to pose reputational and regulatory risks.

2. On Economic Rationale

It is important to emphasize that the affected users are long-term token holders, not speculators. Most ethDYDX tokens belong to active community members who have kept them for years in cold wallets without engaging in short-term trading. Their goal is not to sell - but simply to regain rightful access to their assets, which is a fundamental right in any decentralized system that values fairness and property rights.

The conclusion from this point is also clear: reopening the bridge carries no risks. On the contrary, it reinforces the principles of ownership, fairness, and decentralization.

3. On the Role of the Community

We fully agree that the final decision must be made by the community. However, it is important to emphasize that the community is not just the group of large token holders who will vote on this proposal, but the 45,000 individual users who hold tokens in their wallets - whose reactions and activity were visible in the previous proposal.

These community members currently cannot even participate in the governance process, since their tokens remain locked and unusable for voting.

If the bridge is reopened, the project will gain thousands of engaged participants who have been active on the forum over the past month. Many of these holders will delegate their tokens to validators and take part in the network’s governance, making the protocol more decentralized and resilient.

If the bridge remains closed, the protocol will lose all of these contributors.

The conclusion is obvious: keeping the bridge closed leaves part of the community alienated and frustrated, unable to take part in the protocol’s life, while reopening it will eliminate dissatisfaction and foster an active, loyal community.

We sincerely hope that open discussion and a balanced approach will lead to a decision that restores trust in the DAO and strengthens the reputation of the dYdX ecosystem for years to come.

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After purging ERC-20 dYdX last night, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars in buys on ERC-20 dYdX just over the last 60 days ( which I imagine have been purposely done in tandem with this current melodrama ), that provide a 500%+ ROI if then migrated and sold, which will have deep and long lasting consequences on dYdX as a token.

Because by this logic, then I should go invest 100k on ERC-20 dYdX and walk out with close to a million dollars by the time we migrate.

How will this be attuned to?

In addition, there has to be some deep reflecting on the authenticity of posts in the Migration thread, it took me 60 seconds three weeks ago to discover that 90% of posters which were new accounts made between the last week of August and now, share the exact same Local Time stamp to the minute.

It is 2025, it is not difficult whatsoever to dupe and mimic fraudulent engagement and social media insight.

I do not believe for one minute that the hundreds of posts and “thousands” of views are organic or built on good merit, and I’m incredibly surprised that a validator is shining light on this as if it were. I have been on these forums for years and recently created an account simply to call out the very obvious scam inherent premise behind the behavior of this recent movement.

One can simply purge all locked threads and posts, and even see that many users simply copy pasted the exact same message, this extends to Twitter. Even for posts that aren’t 1:1, the exact same vernacular, formatting and grammar structure, is used repeatedly.

These are the same people working together, in hope these tokens are migrated based off their recent buys, and large ROI if so.

I am very surprised that this is being taken seriously. What should be taken seriously, is attempting to take advantage of a community, for financial profit.

It doesn’t take a wizard to know, that there is malicious practice behind this.

For the record, I am not a token holder, nor am I affiliated with dYdX team, just a trader; but I am deeply passionate about calling out scammers in the space, since 2013.

But if we are migrating, let me know, so I can quickly make the biggest trade of my career with no effort.

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At first I didn’t want to pay attention to your comment, because it contains so much incoherent reasoning that no one will take it seriously.

But just in case reasonable forum members might be swayed by conspiratorial theories, I’ll reveal a few facts about how decentralized liquidity pools actually work and why your arguments have nothing to do with reality.

  1. Trading volume for ethDYDX tokens on Ethereum DEXes is extremely limited. Liquidity there is so low that a $1,000 buy causes ~6.2% slippage. A $10,000 buy would move the price by ~37%. And if you try to buy “hundreds of thousands of dollars” worth of ethDYDX on a DEX as you claim, your own purchases will simply push the price back toward parity with DYDX on the native liquid network (or even higher!).

If you do that, all the initiators of this proposal and ethDYDX holders will be endlessly grateful, because they’ll then have the opportunity to convert their ethDYDX into native DYDX on the liquid network at an acceptable rate. I’m personally even willing to do this at a 0.8:1 rate — I’d sell you my tokens at a 20% discount so you could later sell them at full price and pocket the difference as a trader.

  1. Even if some market participant took the risk and bought $1,000 of ethDYDX, that simply means an old holder sold their tokens to them at a large loss of $1,000. That’s how a liquidity pool works — it merely redistributes holdings. The total number of tokens on the network doesn’t change; the supply remains the same, so opening the bridge will not suddenly increase market supply.

  2. Regarding “new accounts” and “copy-pastes”: tens of thousands of users were cut off from access to their funds. The dYdX forum has long suffered from moderation limitations, and it is unsurprising that people were forced to create new accounts solely to raise their issues. This is not fake activity - it is a natural reaction to having one’s assets locked.

Imagine you put green dollar bills in a bank two years ago, and then the central bank changes the dollar bills design to blue and tells you that your green dollars are now worthless because everyone uses blue dollars now. While you were occupied with personal matters - perhaps in hospital or on a round-the-world trip - your funds became invalid and were lost forever. What would you do? I think you’d make a sign “Central Bank SCAM” and go pound on their doors. That is exactly what innocent users are doing on the forum. It is extremely disrespectful to accuse victims, who are trying to restore justice after a loss - of “scamming” or “cheating”.

I sincerely hope you never end up in a similar situation, and that we never have to stand together on this forum as victims while someone responds by calling us “scammers” or “pumpers.”

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As an active participant in the dYdX ecosystem, it’s honestly disheartening to see how much frustration and negativity has built up around the bridge closure. The fact that this forum thread has become the most discussed and viewed in dYdX governance history speaks volumes — the community is clearly asking to be heard.

I fully support the community proposal to temporarily re-enable the ethDYDX bridge for a 12-month period. This is a balanced and community-focused initiative that would:

  • Allow the remaining ~41.7M ethDYDX tokens to be migrated to DYDX on the dYdX Chain as originally intended;

  • Prevent further reputational and potential regulatory risks for the dYdX ecosystem;

  • Reinforce the values of fairness, decentralization, and accountability within the dYdX community;

  • Build long-term trust with both current and future users of the protocol.

Importantly, the proposed solution poses no risk to the security of the chain or its validators, and is technically straightforward — simply resetting the is_disabled flag to false to reopen the bridge.

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It’s not difficult to transfer tokens held by users before the bridge was closed.

People want their investments back. They don’t need someone else’s.

I created my account recently, which doesn’t mean I’m a bot. I just don’t frequent forums.

You’re very negative. Be more friendly.

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Hello dYdX team and community.

With the closure of the ERC-20 bridge, many users found themselves in a situation where their ethDYDX tokens have become effectively locked and stripped of their market value. According to public data, this has affected approximately 45,000 addresses.

I believe that a temporary or one-time restoration of the bridge is a reasonable and fair solution that would benefit the entire dYdX ecosystem community.

Why is this important?

  • Web3 is built on transparency and respect for the user. When thousands of people are still holding their ERC-20 tokens with no way to convert them, it undermines trust in the fairness and technological reliability of the dYdX project.

  • Many users were not notified in a timely manner for various reasons discussed previously, which ultimately left a significant part of the community unaware. Reopening the bridge for a limited period would help restore fairness and demonstrate that the project respects its community and does not abandon investors, ensuring their legitimate access to funds.

  • The bridge reopening can be implemented without posing a threat to the security of the main dYdX Chain. The ERC-20 tokens are governed by a fixed contract and cannot be re-minted, meaning there is no risk of inflation or liquidity duplication.

  • Restoring the bridge is a sign of a project’s maturity. Such actions strengthen dYdX’s reputation as an ecosystem that cares for its users and can acknowledge the technical shortcomings of a transition period. This will also increase trust in the eyes of institutional investors.

  • ERC-20 dYdX is part of the project’s history. Supporting the users who still hold tokens on this network will strengthen liquidity and ensure a more organic growth of the community, underpinned by sound ethical principles.

  • Reopening the bridge is not merely a technical act. It is a matter of trust, fairness, and respect for the community that has made dYdX what it is today.

Let this step set an example of mature governance and dialogue with users.

I support the proposal to reopen the ERC-20 bridge for a limited time to allow users to safely migrate their tokens.

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What on earth are you even talking about?
Fraud? Seriously? What kind of fraud?
And what “purchases after the bridge was closed” are you referring to?

I really hope you’ve been in the crypto market long enough to know that anyone can take a blockchain snapshot and clearly see who bought before the bridge was closed and who bought after. It’s all transparent - there’s no way to fake it!

So why accuse early investors of fraud? That’s completely absurd!

The person hiding behind the nickname >>“apt”<< clearly has no understanding of even the most basic blockchain principles, yet dares to call honest investors scammers.

Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounds? And then he claims he’s “not involved in the process”?
Come on - if he’s truly not involved, then what is he even doing here on this forum?!

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Dear dYdX Validators,

I am writing on behalf of community members concerned about the permanent closure of the Ethereum–dYdX Chain bridge. I respectfully request that validators and governance participants consider reopening the bridge, or developing an alternative mechanism for transferring ethDYDX tokens into the dYdX Chain.

1. Why the bridge should be reopened

The bridge is a fundamental infrastructure element ensuring liquidity, accessibility, and flexibility between ecosystems. Its closure has trapped many users holding ethDYDX, preventing them from migrating, staking, or participating in governance. This undermines inclusivity and weakens the overall ecosystem.

2. Why reopening the bridge does not create legal risks for dYdX

A new bridge can be deployed through community-managed smart contracts and DAO governance, without direct operational involvement of dYdX Trading Inc. or the dYdX Foundation. Such an approach eliminates centralized liability while maintaining compliance and decentralization principles.

3. Why reopening the bridge is important for the community

The community is the cornerstone of dYdX. Many early supporters and investors currently cannot join the new chain ecosystem. Reopening the bridge would restore fairness, expand participation, and strengthen confidence in the project’s long-term vision.

We kindly ask validators to open a public discussion about this matter and explore technical and governance options for a secure, decentralized bridge solution.

Respectfully ,Valerii Chekhovskyi

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I am a long-term ethDYDX holder affected by the bridge closure.
I support re-enabling the wethDYDX bridge for 12 months to allow remaining holders a fair migration window.

I encourage validators and the community to vote “Yes” on the on-chain proposal following this discussion.

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I just created my account after discovering the migration issue.
I am not attempting to exploit the system; I am a long-term holder affected by the bridge closure.
I support re-enabling the bridge fairly, with safeguards for long-term holders and to prevent exploitation.
Discussions about fraudulent engagement should focus on patterns and governance measures, not automatically discredit new accounts like mine.

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Smart Stake validator is in support of opening the bridge. Thanks @Cosmic_Validator for the initiative

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This topic is temporarily closed for at least 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.

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This topic was automatically opened after 4 hours.

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Kingnodes is broadly in favor of re-enabling the bridge for 12 months, as this would help stranded holders regain access and restore community trust. However, we have serious reservations about the “temporary” nature of the fix—and what happens after that window closes.

If the bridge is shut down again at the end of 12 months, current holders could be left exactly where they are now: unable to migrate or access value. To prevent this cycle, we’d like to see a clear, long-term strategy built into the proposal:

  1. Transition plan — What happens at the end of 12 months? Will there be a second phase, extension, or conversion mechanism?

  2. Holder protection — Can we guarantee that holders won’t be trapped again?

  3. Governance clause — Perhaps a clause that mandates community vote before any future bridge closure.

Kingnodes support the intent, but only if this proposal includes safeguards against repeating the same issue down the line.

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Some validators suggested an idea to set a “percentage bridged” target, rather than a “time” target which is something that could be discussed

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I fully support re-opening the ethDYDX bridge for 12 months. This helps users access ~41.7M unbridged tokens, reduces potential legal/reputational risks, and can be done safely without affecting network security. The proposed is_disabled flag ensures clear control and makes this a temporary, community-driven solution.

A big thank you to the dYdX team for making this possible and supporting the community through this process!

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It’s tough to call myself a fan of the decisions made by dydx.

I still stand by my opinion on why the bridge was closed in the first place (pure regulatory)

But this attack on the forum seems to be a coordinated effort by a few people, likely to make a profit by buying ethdydx at 5 cents and selling it on the market. Agree with @apt

They created a Telegram group called Dydx Hostages, and by the way, I got banned when I tried to figure out what was going on - no clue why.

All posts, likes, and comments on social media are being coordinated by the group admins.

Opening the bridge like this isn’t the way to go; or at least allow bridging only for accounts that held tokens at the time the bridge was shut down.

Regarding “loyal members” of the community, please confirm your wallets. It’s easy to verify. Write your wallet address and sign a message on Etherscan with your key: “I, {Nickname}, on dydx.forum own this wallet and request access to the bridge.”

If we get enough people on board, it makes sense to reopen the bridge.

Right now you all look like a bunch of sybils

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lol. what?
Dear Mr holder of 36k tokens, I wrote few messages in a friendly manner I joined that group to look at the situation and make my own conclusion. I dont care about that group to be disappointed
I am independent person and was in dydx community since 2021

Dont post this copy pasta everywhere.
Just post your wallet address. Otherwise its blablabla

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