Macauley Peterson

A week after the launch of Dymension, alongside a large-scale airdrop of its staking and governance token DYM, some claimants continue to report problems taking control of their crypto.



Solana users of the Phantom wallet, particularly those paired with Ledger hardware wallets, were initially unable to access the airdropped tokens, according to reports in the project’s Discord and on X.



Dymension, the latest entrant to the modular blockchain landscape, released 70 million DYM worth roughly 7% of the total supply, on Feb. 6, primarily to users of Ethereum layer-2 networks, Solana, Celestia and Cosmos.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/dymension-fails-to-reach-consensus">Dymension fails to reach consensus because of bad validator set</a>



The delegated proof-of-stake blockchain, built on the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Cosmos</a> SDK, aims to be a service provider for application-specific rollups — or “RollApps” — offering security, interoperability (using <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ibc">IBC</a>) and liquidity for those building atop the Dymension Hub.



The project estimated that its airdrop included about 180,000 addresses which interacted with Solana protocols such as Wormhole, Tensor, and Drip.Haus, that collectively received 10 million DYM (or 1% of the total supply).



Of those, a large majority will be users of Phantom, as the leading Solana browser extension wallet with upwards of 3 million downloads from the Chrome app store.



Claiming DYM required users to specify an <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/evm">EVM</a> address to receive the tokens and, since Phantom supports Ethereum and Polygon, many of those will have specified the EVM address provided by the wallet.



However, despite the large installed user base, Phantom users could not claim DYM using the project’s staking <a href="https://portal.dymension.xyz/dymension/staking">page</a>, since the Dymension chain is unsupported.



As a workaround, these users were told on the Dymension Discord to import their wallet’s seed phrase into <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/metamask">MetaMask</a>. The seed phrase — typically 12 words — can be used to reconstruct a wallet’s private key, and is generally best kept safely hidden away offline.



For those with a <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ledger">Ledger</a> hardware wallet to protect the private key rather than Phantom itself, claiming was even trickier.



When Phantom added Ledger support, it <a href="https://help.phantom.app/hc/en-us/articles/12988493966227-What-derivation-paths-does-Phantom-wallet-support">opted</a> for a somewhat unusual BIP44 Root Ethereum <a href="https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/84">derivation path</a>. That meant it was impossible to import the wallet used to claim DYM using MetaMask’s default settings.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">damn <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24DYM&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$DYM</a> going crazy this hurts knowing my wallet is on a derivative path that <a href="https://twitter.com/MetaMask?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MetaMask</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/keplrwallet?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@keplrwallet</a> do not support currently $7k USD worth !pain&mdash; payrollstevie (@payrollstevie) <a href="https://twitter.com/payrollstevie/status/1755629257177403674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



A Phantom support email seen by Blockworks stated that “to claim the tokens using a Ledger wallet you will need a wallet provider that supports both the DYM network and the derivation path of the Ledger wallet. This is not currently supported by wallets, unfortunately.”



Alex Jupiter, senior product manager for MetaMask suggested that Phantom or Dymension could contribute a solution.



&#8220;MetaMask already supports different derivation paths for the Ledger hardware wallet,” Jupiter told Blockworks. “If a new derivation path needs to be added for the Ledger hardware wallet, we&#8217;ll happily accept and review a community contribution to our codebase for this addition.”



That’s a problem, according to Hannes Graah, who&#8217;s building <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/making-crypto-wallets-user-friendly">Zeal</a> wallet.



&#8220;This is another example of complexity in Web3 user experiences,&#8221; Graah told Blockworks. “Phantom’s oversight in accommodating legacy Ledger users leaves many feeling sidelined,” he added.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/making-crypto-wallets-user-friendly">Gone crypto: From Revolut to Zeal</a>



Within days, Zeal released a version of its own wallet that supports this derivation path, and Graah has been personally assisting Dymension community members in the project’s Discord.



Related problems affected users of Ledger rival Trezor, and even experienced crypto users struggled to resolve the impasse.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Silly me, I claimed my <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24DYM&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$DYM</a> to a Trezor and had to go on an adventure just to transfer it out to a CEX &#8211; Rabby doesn’t work as chains can’t be manually added so would have to wait for their team to support &#8211; I can connect Trezor to MetaMask and add Dymension RPC manually but…&mdash; ChainLinkGod.eth (@ChainLinkGod) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChainLinkGod/status/1755747838099886294?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The Dymension team did not return multiple requests for comment.



Airdrops are intended to serve as a marketing tool, to bootstrap usage of new networks and an attempt to align incentives between project participants, but Dymension’s was yet another illustration of crypto’s user experience (UX) shortcomings.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Hardware wallet users struggle with Dymension airdrop

Bessie Liu

Dymension&#8217;s mainnet launch has encountered significant challenges due to consensus issues among its validators.



Chorus One, the ecosystem’s largest validator, has experienced node issues that disrupted its ability to participate effectively in the consensus process. This is particularly concerning given that Chorus One holds 34.8% of the network’s voting power.



In blockchain technology, validators are individuals or groups that lock up tokens and run software that can store and verify data to ensure its accuracy.&nbsp;



Achieving consensus — a mutual agreement among validators on the validity of transactions — is critical to the blockchain’s operation. It safeguards the network against fraudulent activities and ensures that only verified transactions are recorded.



Read More: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/consensus-mechanisms-guide">The beginner’s guide to consensus mechanisms</a>



To prevent malicious transactions, validators must agree, or reach a “consensus.” Failure to do so may lead to a network shutting down. For a network like Dymension, which seeks to leverage modular blockchain architecture to offer superior performance and customization, maintaining a cohesive and stable group of <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/validator">validators</a> is essential for its success and reliability.



The majority of blockchains today require 66% of the stake to agree on a topic before it can achieve consensus.



In the case of Dymension, however, the failure of its largest validator meant that regardless of whether or not other validators had operative nodes, the network itself could not reach consensus.



Dymension has not responded to Blockwork’s request for commentary before publication time.



Chorus One <a href="https://twitter.com/ChorusOne/status/1754877315647955440">noted</a> in a post on X that all Dymension validators are currently coordinating to perform a restart. The team stated that it will join the chain as soon as the issue is resolved.&nbsp;



“We are addressing an issue on our side that led to a less than ideal launch experience for the Dymension mainnet ~2 hours ago,” Chorus One wrote.&nbsp;



The team notes that the cause of the issue is still unknown, but likely relates to the network’s node software.&nbsp;



“We followed all the guidelines issued by [the] Dymension team, so this might be some subtle bug in the node software,” the company wrote.&nbsp;



It added that the reason it held over 33% of the network stake is that it had been an early Dymension supporter who had staked a significant amount of its DYM token in the genesis block.&nbsp;



“Other early-stage investors didn’t stake to genesis, which led us to have 34% power in the failed launch,” Chorus One wrote.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.