DeFi
The Linea ZeroLend protocol is a copy-paste Aave fork, linked to the original documents
Decentralized finance (DeFi) has its share of “forks,” but they rarely top the total value locked (TVL) rankings. Linea, the zero-knowledge rollup bootstrapped by Consensys, claims to be home to “the most innovative web3 projects.” But its largest project, ZeroLend, is a seemingly low-cost fork of Aave, the widely established lending protocol.
As noted by X (formerly Twitter) user @majinsayan, ZeroLend’s mobile site until very recently I was even redirected to Aave’s own FAQ section.
The biggest protocol on linea (consensys) is a copy-pasted aave fork that forgot to change the hyperlinks in the documentation that still point to the aave docs
Ethereum people should shut up for 30 days and watch the crap they’re selling to the world
will keep a clean house pic.twitter.com/MibgMXppuo
— MAJIN (@majinsayan) July 6, 2024
With $235 million TVL, ZeroLend accounts for more than a third of the blockchain’s entire $667 million TVL, according to data by DeFiLlama.
“Forking,” common in DeFi, is the practice of copying the code of an existing project to reuse it and, ideally, develop it further.
Aave, often bifurcated, is the the biggest protocol in DeFi — ignoring Lido and Eigenlayer which offer ETH staking and re-staking respectively — with $11.6 billion TVL across 12 channels.
Many versions of Aave and the similar lending protocol Compound have been deployed over the years and have often fallen victim to hackers. Recent examples include Radiant Capital, which lost $4.5 million in January, and Michael Patryn’s UwU Lend, which was hacked for $20 million a month ago.
Learn more: Sifu’s UwU Lend Reportedly Hacked for $20 Million, Curve’s Egorov Among Those Affected
Despite this, the original codebases are widely considered to be among the most secure in the industry, with any changes only possible through decentralized governance and on-chain voting.
While this may be comforting to even the most risk-averse cryptocurrency users, as addresses labeled as United States GovernmentThis is not without its problems, given that everything Bug Fixes take time to implement.
Learn more: Compound Finance Upgrade Bug Locks Up $830 Million in Cryptocurrency
Friends don’t force friends
Last March, Aave Governance Delegate Marc Zeller describe ZeroLend is “Aave’s codebase with a high-inflation shitcoin stuck on top.”
The comment came in response to ZeroLend’s governance forum job suggesting that Aave recognize them as a “friendly fork,” offering share the revenue and a portion of their ZERO token airdrop in exchange.
Zeller, however, didn’t seem too keen on the reputational risk of associating Aave with one of the many unauthorized spin-offs, saying that ZeroLend “only has one likely outcome, integrating the wrong collateral or the wrong Oracle, or promoting a bad configuration and showing up in Rekt News.”
ZeroLend was looking for a setup similar to MakerDAO’s SparkLend, which was endorsed by Aave under a similar revenue share proposal since he pass in March 2023.
Despite this, Spark also found himself on Zeller’s radar last week. accused MakerDAO’s “creative accounting” approach, leading to a revenue share calculation “much closer to 1%,” rather than the agreed 10%.
Zeller is no stranger to inter-DAO controversies, hit to Gauntlet and Morpho earlier this year, and criticize the same risk management strategy of the pair following Renzo’s depeg of ezETH. He then called MakerDAO “reckless” decision to embark Ethena’s “synthetic dollar” as collateral.
Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more up-to-date information, follow us on X, Instagram, Blue skyAnd Google Newsor subscribe to our Youtube channel.