Dear friends, DYDX holders and network validators,
Let’s imagine a situation. A lot of depositors put their money in a bank, but the bank didn’t send them any letters — it just made a small announcement in a local newspaper saying that everyone must submit their personal information in writing, otherwise they would never get their money back.
Do you think all depositors would manage to do that in time? Some might be sick, some traveling, some simply trusting that such a thing couldn’t happen!
Can you imagine something like this happening in a traditional banking system — people losing their deposits just because of some technicality?
So why, as supporters of decentralized finance, are we allowing such a situation to happen? I always thought we wanted to make the world better!
Why Should Others Decide What Happens to My Assets?
I’ve been thinking more about the governance process around this issue, and I honestly don’t understand how it’s considered fair. Why should I have to watch other people vote on what happens to my money?
The whole idea of decentralization was supposed to protect individual ownership — not to let a handful of validators or large holders decide the fate of everyone else’s assets. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening here. Those who already migrated and hold the new DYDX have no motivation to support ERC-20 holders; they already got what they wanted. So their votes carry full weight, while the people who are actually affected have zero say.
When I bought my tokens, nobody said that one day a group of others would get to vote on whether I could still use them or not. That’s not decentralization — that’s a system where your rights depend on someone else’s financial interests. It overwrites the very concept of ownership.
To put it simply — imagine I decide to buy a billion DYDX tokens. From that moment on, I can vote only for what benefits me and block any proposal that doesn’t. How is that fair to everyone else? Governance in this form becomes an instrument of control, not representation. The more you hold, the more power you have — and that’s the opposite of what decentralized finance was meant to be.
How can a project that promotes fairness and transparency justify this kind of imbalance? The governance structure should exist to represent everyone, not to silence those who lost access to their investments.
This is not just a technical issue — it’s an ethical one. Decisions that affect people’s money should never be made by those who have nothing to lose from the outcome.
I honestly bought tokens two years ago at $2.50-$3, and I don’t understand your gloating and joy at seeing people lose millions. If only 4% of the tokens are locked up, then even if someone buys them ALL, is it possible to conduct a hostile takeover with just 4% of the tokens? Seriously?
In the distant future, Quantum Computers will be able to break Bitcoin cryptography, and funds in Bitcoin addresses will be vulnerable to hackers. Hopefully, years before that becomes true, the Bitcoin network will move to a Quantum-Resistant network, and when that happens, people will have to migrate their Bitcoins to the new, secure network. This is inevitable given the pace of technology in the Quantum space. Those who don’t migrate within a certain time frame will not be allowed to after the end of the migration window, because it is necessary to stop hackers from stealing large amounts of idle Bitcoins like Satoshi’s stash.
Not too far off from what happened here. the eth-DYDX token has ZERO utility, and does NOT secure the new dYdX Chain. If very little supply is bridged, then very little will secure the TVL of the chain (currently over $200 million USDC is secured by ~250mil staked dydx tokens (~$72mil) which is woefully already very low, these staked tokens vote on and against proposals that can literally ‘transfer’ USDC from one address to another just like this was just done to fund the DODGERSWIN insurance fund and also compensate users impacted by Oct 10 outage). Imagine only 1 mil are migrated, then someone can buy a larger amount, pass ridiculous proposals to ‘send me all the moneyz’ and vote Yes and passes it. Therefore, when the security of a new chain is dependent on the amount of migrated tokens, it is required to force migration within a certain time frame. People had twenty months to bridge (Nov 2023 to June 2025), the dYdX X account posted 15 times in the last 2 months about the bridge imminent closure. The Foundation also worked diligently with all major exchanges which led to unprecedented 96% of coins bridged over. People vote No not because they find joy in doing so, but to express their opinion that 20 months is sufficient time, and past governance decisions are final. People who deliberately self-custody take on additional responsibility to keep up with small projects that need to be nimble, otherwise they should have left their coins on the exchange to handle it for them
This proposal appears headed to Failure with a simple No majority. In the future, I believe any future proposals similar to this one will get ‘Veto’ vote rather than No, which will cause the proposer to lose their 2000 dydx deposit.
I will also point out a simple fact. Validators on dYdX truly do it for the Love of the Game. A top validator like Polkachu makes ~$400 per month, probably/almost certainly operating at a loss. Enabling the weth-ETH bridge will require them to run additional Ethereum-node which can cost $1-3k per month for compute, storage, and network egress. Over 12 month period, that would mean tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs that is not compensated due to the low rewards paid to stakers. Many validators simply voted along economic principle.
@Cosmic_Validator I’m wondering, what are your spendings for dYdX node maintenance vs benefits? It will be helpful if you can share such info (you can DM me, if you don’t want to post it here)
I held the dYdX token in its original ERC-20 form on the Ethereum blockchain, the network on which the token was initially issued and promoted.
If the project doesn’t allow me to transfer my tokens to native chain, there will be a lawsuit. Stop deleting this message.
The voting process is not fair. Totally agree with a person above: “Why Should Others Decide What Happens to My Assets?”
I was just watching how other people vote against this proposal because they have migrated their tokens while others didn’t.
I am not surprised by the results.
I held the dYdX token in its original ERC-20 form on the Ethereum blockchain — the same network where the token was initially issued, listed, and promoted.
If the project continues to provide no official way for ERC-20 holders to migrate to the native chain, it shows a lack of fairness and responsibility to the earliest supporters of dYdX.
The voting process was not fair. I completely agree with the person who said: “Why should others decide what happens to my assets?”
It’s clear that those who already migrated had a strong incentive to vote against keeping the bridge open, while others who didn’t migrate yet were left without representation.
This outcome was predictable — and it does not reflect a truly decentralized or inclusive governance model.
I urge the dYdX team and community to reconsider this decision and open a new, limited migration window to support ERC-20 holders who were left behind.
Fairness and transparency should always come before technical convenience.
I hold 10,000 DYDX tokens on Ethereum. I staked my tokens when DYDX first introduced staking, at a time when the token price was $10, so my holding cost is quite high. Unfortunately, I missed the DYDX network migration and suffered losses to my assets as a result. I support restarting the cross-chain bridge.
I’m a holder, and I have a large number of dYdX coins. I couldn’t even imagine that leaving my coins unattended for a long time might result in their disappearance. I’m asking you to open the bridge. Why don’t you think about the people who have believed in you and held onto their coins for years?
If you’re not a s-c-a-m-m-e-r, be responsible with where your money goes. Not logging on to forums, Twitter for two years is malpractice and you probably deserve to lose money.