The Lido DAO has overwhelmingly voted in support of a unified proposal from Wormhole and Axelar network to deploy a bridge for wrapped staked ETH (wstETH).

While the bridge will initially connect only BNB Chain, the proposed solution can support other EVM chains in the future.

Axelar Foundation and Wormhole collaborated to present a bridge-agnostic approach that is open-source and extensible, with no vendor lock-in. In other words, Lido DAO has the flexibly to add or remove other bridge providers in the future + perform cross-chain governance.

This composability is a hallmark of the open-source approach in the Axelar + Wormhole proposal, which could not be duplicated by other proposals in the vote – a shortcoming that may have contributed to the lopsided outcome

Initially, contracts for the bridge will be operated by a multisig of validators from Axelar network + contributors from Wormhole Foundation + BNB Chain. Once cross-chain governance has been implemented, ownership will shift to Aragon smart contracts operated by Lido DAO.

Axelar network and Wormhole security will protect users. Both are subject to extensive audits and the only 2 networks to win Uniswap DAO approval.

Axelar Foundation and Wormhole will bear development + audit costs to deploy the bridge as a public good at zero cost to the Lido DAO. Once developed, audited + deployed, the bridge will be proposed for Lido DAO's final consideration.

Proposal: https://research.lido.fi/t/wormhole-x-axelar-lido-bridge-implementation-for-wsteth-on-bnb-chain/6012.

Results: https://snapshot.org/#/lido-snapshot.eth/proposal/0xc12ae07242326a719cb6b6a5eb19cb77eb4515b4a5ebe58508f965a5b9abb27c.