Wednesday late afternoon, the Multichain Bridge (MULTI) teams announced that CEO Zhaojun was unreachable. Following further problems and an inability to fix them, the user interfaces for services on 11 blockchains have been suspended. Back to the details of this announcement.
Multichain bridge encounters new problems
Last week, the Multichain (MULTI) cryptocurrency bridge began experiencing problems with the finalisation of certain transactions. In fact, “multiple problems due to unforeseeable circumstances” meant that some users never saw their assets arrive at their destination.
This began with router number 2, which led Binance to temporarily suspend the deposit of 10 assets from certain blockchains, pending further information from the protocol:
We’ll be temporarily suspending deposits for the following bridged tokens-network while we await clarity from the Multichain team.
POLS-BSC
ACH-BSC
BIFI-FTM
SUPER-BSC
AVA-ETH
SPELL-AVAXC
ALPACA-FTM
FTM-ETH
FARM-BSC
DEXE-BSCDeposits of the above assets on other networks are…
– Binance (@binance) May 25, 2023
Since then, a similar problem has been encountered on router number 5, and after 6 days of silence on Twitter, the Multichain teams have finally communicated to try and clarify the situation:
In the past two days, the Multichain protocol has experienced multiple issues due to unforeseeable circumstances. The team has done everything possible to maintain the protocol running, but we are currently unable to contact CEO Zhaojun and obtain the necessary server access for…
– Multichain (Previously Anyswap) (@MultichainOrg) May 31, 2023
We now learn that CEO Zhaojun cannot be contacted, which tends to support the rumours of his arrest by the Chinese authorities, mentioned last week, but not fully confirmed :
“The team has done everything possible to keep the protocol running, but we are currently unable to contact CEO Zhaojun and obtain access to the server required for maintenance. This afternoon, there was a problem with Router5’s network of analysis nodes, which affected the normal cross-channel service of some channels. In addition, this problem exceeds the team’s current permissions and capabilities.”
Services suspended on 11 blockchains
Unable to perform required maintenance, services on 11 blockchains have been suspended from the Multichain Bridge user interface:
- Kekchain ;
- PublicMint;
- Dyno Chain ;
- Red Light Chain ;
- Dexit ;
- Ekta ;
- HPB ;
- ONUS ;
- Omax ;
- Findora ;
- Planq.
In addition, the protocol teams have also invited users to stop using the smart contracts concerned live.
For the time being, there is no indication as to whether the situation will worsen or improve. Factually, it is worth bearing in mind that in less than a week, two similar problems have been encountered on two different bridge routers, and that Zhaojun, a critical player in the smooth running of the bridge, has gone missing.
Whatever the outcome of this story, these are events to bear in mind when using bridges in the future. Bridges are designed to link together two very distinct blockchains, and problems can arise from there. The technologies used to do this are varied, and it is important to understand how the application used works in order to limit the risk of losing funds.
While the MULTI token suffered massive sales last week, this time the impact on its price is more limited. In fact, the asset is even up 4.7% over 24 hours at the time of writing, trading at $4.12 each.
