Why did zkSync give TxFusion a cross-chain bridge?

Question

Author: Haotian, Crypto Observer Source: X (formerly Twitter) @tmel0211

In line with the ZK Credo Manifesto, zksync recently completed the decentralization of Eco Portal, Block Explorer and the official Cross-Bridge, and these core parts are open sourced by third-party technology parties.

However, what is puzzling is that the "official cross-chain bridge" involving major asset deposits and withdraw channels was handed over to the little-known TxFusion. Why？ How to interpret this matter?

In general, auxiliary product functions such as ecological data analysis services and browsers are generally provided by community builders, for example, mainstream public chain projects such as Etherscan behind Ethereum are all from community builders. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that zkSync handed over ecological DApp data analysis and ranking, as well as browser presentation, to Dappradar, l2scan and other well-known technical teams.

In this way, win-win advantages complement each other, and Matter labs can focus on technology development and the promotion of ZK Stack technical architecture, including: shared Sequencer, shared zkPorter and other technical components. It's good for the community or the team.

Because the blockchain community has many teams that do data analysis services, such as dune analytics, 0xScope, nansen, etc., their biggest pain point is the business model. The charging model of to C is difficult to cover high operating costs, to B services, most project parties are accustomed to doing it themselves, unwilling to give it over, which makes a large number of data service companies have a hard time. If a large number of project parties follow zkSync, this will bring new opportunities to such technical service companies. (But that's too much.)

However, the "official cross-chain bridge" is such a technical component related to the security of layer2 assets, zkSync has been handed over to a new Starup, TxFusion. **I looked up a lot of information and didn't dig out why this TxFusion is sacred? But I found a few interesting points:

TxFusion's earliest blog was published on February 21 this year, without disclosing the investor, and the team is relatively vague, but the opening article is to cooperate with zkSync, which seems to be born for zkSync.
TxFusion founder Ines Isliami has had data-related experience in blockchain collective, HyperGrowth, Shard Labs and other blockchain-related companies since 2020, but not for a long time;
TxFusion founder Ines Isliam has a video interview with a similar accent to zkSync founder Alex, presumably Russian.

I've been seeing these messages right now, so it's puzzling why zkSync would give the cross-chain bridge to TxFusion. However, as a blogger who has been following zkSync dynamics for a long time, I personally understand the motivation behind it, and briefly share:

The kernel is that **zkSyn is not willing or willing to recognize the existence of "official cross-chain bridges". **

On the one hand, because cross-chain bridges are L2 safety lifelines. Simply understood, any asset circulating in L2 is a mapping asset in the form of Wrap, and all assets circulating in L2 are restricted circulating assets as long as they are hacked or Rugpull as long as they can be withdrawn back to the main chain before the "hacker" pulls the asset back to the main chain.

The Rollup mainnet contract can block the flow of suspected L2 assets back to the mainnet through Update, thereby realizing the control of sudden abnormal conditions. Now mainstream layer2 presupposes the Security Council, and the main responsibility of the multi-signature committee behind it is to decide whether to upgrade the contract to control suspect assets in times of crisis.

However, the upgradeable feature reserved by the Rollup contract has been criticized for centralization and has not been able to be put on the table. Alex said in the interview that even if the multisig committee has authority, it can only suspend assets, and the decision on assets is left to the DAO community. But this explanation can only be heard, because once layer2 suffers a huge asset attack, such as a contract being issued with several trillion assets out of thin air, it seems feasible to buy out Layer2's assets and do a DAO governance vote.

On the other hand, Alex published an article discussing the use of the Supreme Court's layered governance mechanism to manage Layer 2, but that proposal would eventually trigger the possibility of a hard fork of the mainnet. Impossible, the current layer2 cannot have the authority to decide whether the mainnet forks or not, this can only stay in the envisioning stage.

It can be seen that Alex has been anxious about security and decentralization for a long time. **

If the "official cross-chain bridge" is revoked, more assets will be distributed in various third-party cross-chain bridges, which will correspondingly weaken the problem of centralized management authority of Rollup's governance contract.

This layout sounds reasonable, but it is only a stopgap measure, after all, even if it is a third-party cross-chain bridge, as long as the liquidity control reaches a certain scale, there will be hidden dangers of centralization. How exactly TxFusion does cross-chain bridges, hopefully

There are official disclosures about technical details. For example, if TxFusion's Portal and Bridge have similar security crises in the future, how will zkSync respond? This question is not answered now, just wait and see.