Continuing our efforts to do right by our community, Metis has completed its compensation to users affected by the hack of our Twitter account in August.
Our team spent several weeks reviewing support tickets filed in our Discord channel, then sifted through reams of on-chain data, to separate legitimate claims from those linked to the hacker’s wallet. Once that due diligence was complete, the MetisDAO Foundation sent compensation to the affected users, at the same value as the time of the hack.
Background
About two months ago, an unidentified party stole the identity of a Metis team member, then used that stolen identity to execute an illegal SIM swap, followed by gaining access to our Twitter account. From there, the hacker posted phishing links from the MetisDAO Twitter account, successfully draining funds from a small number of users.
On September 14, we announced plans to compensate both users affected by the Twitter hack and users affected by an attack on the PolyNetwork bridge. As we wrote last month:
Yes, PolyNetwork was a Community Ecosystem Governance-approved cross-chain bridge provider, having been ratified as a Metis Community Verified Project (CVP) by community vote. Yes, the MetisDAO Twitter hack was a reckless illegal act perpetrated by a dangerous thief. Nonetheless, the results in both cases could rightly be seen by our community as a violation of the sacred trust we have worked so hard over the years to build with all of you.
Preserving that trust and doing right by our community were the driving forces that prompted us to make affected users whole, in both cases. In addition, we have tightened our security protocols for Metis social channels, and upgraded to LayerZero’s OFT cross-chain standard, which enables Metis to be seamlessly traded, held, and used across numerous blockchains, with the first two supported chains being BNB and Avalanche.
Next Steps
Ensuring your trust is especially important given all of the exciting and ambitious plans we’re rolling out for Metis users, both now and in the weeks and months to come.
1. We recently introduced the Layer 3 Quest. Launched in tandem with trusted bridge provider Layer 3, this quest offers users the opportunity to complete 10 challenges, all of them involving interacting with the growing Metis ecosystem. Upon completion of each challenge, users receive a custom NFT. By collecting all 10 NFTs, quest participants will gain access to attractive rewards, with details to be announced at a later date. (Trust us, you really, really want to complete this quest.) Try out the Metis Layer 3 Quest here.
2. We recently announced the Metis Journey, a $5,000,000 DeFi Incentive Program rewarding users of top DeFi dApps on Metis. The dApps include:
- Benchmark lending and borrowing protocol Aave.
- Unimaia, modeled after Uniswap v3’s powerful concentrated liquidity model.
- Hummus, modeled after DeFi powerhouse Balancer and featuring innovative features such as a quad pool that enables users to interact with both stable and more dynamic assets at once.
3. On October 5, a community vote to move Metis back to its original Optimistic Rollup architecture was approved, nearly unanimously. The move will transfer all data availability back to Ethereum. This will have far-reaching benefits for our project, led by enabling Metis to soon launch an endeavor that no other Ethereum rollup has ever done before (see below).
4. Migrating all data availability to Ethereum opens the door for the coming launch of the Metis sequencer pool. The industry standard is currently for Layer 2 networks to rely on a single sequencer to process transactions. The problem with that setup is that it introduces a single-point-of-failure risk; if the sequencer goes down for any reason, the affected network would have major problems to address. Metis will soon become the first Ethereum rollup to distribute sequencer duties across a network of sequencers. In the process, we will share sequencer revenue with our community, becoming the first Ethereum rollup to make that move as well. By introducing a distributed network of sequencers, Metis will become the first truly decentralized Optimistic Rollup, honoring the standards set by the founders of Ethereum.
5. Multiple innovative new DeFi dApps coming to Metis.
6. Surprise(s).
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Thank you as always for supporting Metis. Onward and upward.
