On the X timeline yesterday, DEGEN L3 (@degentokenbase) got into a public argument with the rollup as a service (RaaS) provider Conduit (@conduitxyz). This article will discuss what happened, the aftermath, and why having a reliable RaaS partner is more important than ever. 

DEGEN used Conduit as their RaaS partner, and alleged that Conduit pushed an unannounced upgrade in May that caused the chain to stall which resulted in $160,000 in lost user funds. Furthermore, DEGEN accused Conduit of not handing over the multi-sig keys to their chain as they attempted to migrate and switch service providers. However, a tweet from DEGEN later that day made it clear the situation has been resolved:

Personally, I found it very concerning that DEGEN had to get so public on the timeline to resolve their situation, as Jacek (@jacek0x) is one of the most authentic and nicest individuals in all of crypto. Jacek is the lead builder of the DEGEN chain, and for DEGEN to publicly call out both Conduit and their CEO (@KAndrewHuang) is not a good look for Conduit. 

There are many other RaaS providers in the space, and my personal favorite is Caldera (@calderaxyz). I believe this type of situation would not happen under their watch, and their clients are treated with the utmost respect and professionalism, which I didn’t see in the case of Conduit mishandling DEGEN in more ways than one. 

While there’s always a risk when using third-party infrastructure for blockchain projects, the Conduit fiasco is not an accurate reflection of the other RaaS providers in crypto; in my opinion, it’s an anomaly as it takes a lot of wrongdoing to get public on the timeline like DEGEN did yesterday. I’m personally a big fan of DEGEN, as I used to be a regular user of Warpcast and love how $DEGEN became the app’s official currency for conducting regular airdrops. 

It’s clear DEGEN unfortunately lost a lot of momentum due to the optics of their situation with Conduit, but it was nice seeing the broader crypto community rally around Jacek and the rest of the DEGEN team. It remains to be seen what DEGEN’s next move will be, but it’s no doubt a positive that their situation with Conduit can now be put to rest. As always, thank you for reading this article and be sure to subscribe to stay up to date with the latest news in crypto.