TL;DR: This proposal seeks to create an instant bridge to Sanko Chain, a nascent layer-3 (L3) orbit chain built on Arbitrum. Of the L3s in existence, Sanko Chain has the highest TVL and continues to see steady growth, with native and 3rd-party apps in the pipeline. Currently, there is no instant offramp bridge from Sanko Chain to Ethereum or Arbitrum, which is an obstacle to even greater growth. Synapse would benefit by filling this unmet need and offering the first and only instant on/offramp to Sanko Chain.
Introduction
Sanko Game Corp is a GameFi / SocialFi protocol that launched its own native layer 3 (L3) chain in May. They launched as a retro gaming company, trying to tap onto the nostalgia of 90s gaming and bring it onto the blockchain.
Following their TGE in April 2023 (ticker: DMT), Sanko developed a number of games on Arbitrum, including pinball, Uno, poker, Milady Tekken, and more. In October 2023, Sanko launched its first flagship product, Sanko TV, a decentralized Twitch / Friend Tech hybrid, allowing users to stream whatever content their hearts desired to earn gifts from viewers, with fees used to buy/burn DMT.
In May 2024, Sanko launched its own orbit chain, an L3 built on Arbitrum. Since then, they've launched several native and 3rd-party games. Established protocols such as Camelot and Sudoswap also support Sanko Chain.
Growth
Sanko Chain has seen steady, consistent growth since May 2024, as shown by their TVL / bridge stats. (Source: https://dune.com/ozark/sanko-game-corp). Sanko now has 142k DMT bridged on chain, worth $12.6m. (Most of this TVL is comprised of DMT, although ETH and USDC also exist on chain.)
By comparison, the second and third highest TVLs for L3s are Degen Chain ($3.6m) and Xai Gaming Chain (~$1m). Thus, Sanko Chain is the optimal chain to launch Synapse's first L3 bridge. (Source: https://x.com/Delphi_Digital/status/1807833131556524542/photo/2)
Opportunity
Sanko Chain's persistent growth would be even more significant if an instant offramp existed; anecdotally, this has dissuaded quite a few users from bridging to Sanko Chain.
The greatest economic opportunity for any investor or protocol lies in finding undervalued protocols and underserved user bases. Building a bridge to Sanko will create a new revenue stream for Synapse Dao while exposing a new user base to the unparalleled security and speed of Synapse's bridge products.
Layer Zero created the initial DMT token bridge from Ethereum mainnet to Arbitrum and were rumored to be developing a Sanko Chain bridge. However, their timelines are nebulous and their neglect to Sanko users has not gone unnoticed. This is a prime opportunity for Synapse to steal their thunder and ingratiate itself in this fervent, growing user base.
Conclusion
Unless there are significant concerns about the technical requirements and development resources needed to launch this bridge, I'd like to see this proposal pushed on chain next week. Sanko has a ton of new products in the pipeline, so adding the offramp will ensure users feel comfortable dipping their toes in the waters of Sanko Chain. And by filling a significant unmet need, this will greatly benefit the Synapse Dao treasury.
Pertinent links
Sanko Chain
Retro arcade
Sanko TV
Sanko Chain Dune Stats
Postscript
Apologies for not embedding charts from the sources cited above; I kept getting errors when trying to upload or paste.
