• LayerZero, a blockchain bridge services provider, has been accused of having a backdoor vulnerability in its code.
• The allegations come from James Prestwich, the founder of Nomad, a competitor to LayerZero.
• Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder of LayerZero denies the accusations and suggests that they may be motivated by an upcoming Uniswap governance vote to pick a bridge provider.

Allegations on LayerZero’s Code

The head of Nomad, a LayerZero competitor, recently made allegations that the platform kept „backdoor“ secret which would enable it to bypass security controls in order to pass data between blockchains without anyone’s permission. According to the accuser James Prestwich, this vulnerability could potentially compromise the function of the system.

LayerZero Denies Allegations

Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder of LayerZero denied these accusations and suggested that Prestwich’s motives might be tied to an upcoming Uniswap governance vote to pick a bridge provider. Pellegrino stated that all applications have the ability to set their own security properties which will prevent any kind of unauthorized access or privilege for LayerZero. He also added that describing anything as a critical security vulnerability is insane.

Uniswap Governance Vote

The allegations against LayerZero come just before Uniswap votes on whether to partner with them or not. This vote will decide which bridging service provider will be used by Uniswap and both Nomad and Wormhole are competitors for this position as well.

Security Practices Openly Discussed

Pellegrino further explained that they have openly discussed their security practices with developers who can set parameters barring LayerZero from special access privileges if they choose too.

Conclusion

At this time there is no clear indication whether or not Uniswap will partner with Layer Zero but both sides are asserting their stance on this matter clearly and it is up to Uniswap now to make their decision keeping in mind all possible factors involved in this situation.