Is a bridged token actually backed 1:1?
I checked two on the Rayls Public Chain from both ends, and one of them is backed by 40,000,000 tokens that never crossed the bridge
If you run treasury and hold $BRL1.p on Rayls, your claim is $BRL1 locked in a LayerZero lock box on Polygon
BRL1.p: equal to the last unit
On 4 Nov 2026 at 14:36 UTC my checker read both sides together (Rayls block 13,839,744, Polygon block 96,731,678): 255,291.961901 $BRL1.p on Rayls, 255,291.961901 $BRL1 in the lock box. Difference 0, in raw units.
A matching total can still hide one bad message, so I paired every message since 14 Oct by its LayerZero guid. All 18, 16 locks and 2 releases, carry equal raw amounts on both chains. Polygon to Rayls took a median of 267 s, and LayerZero Scan's own 4m 28s for the largest one matches my 268 s for it.
$RLS: covered, but not only by the bridge
The Rayls Transparency Portal counts total supply as 9,931,411,076.81, the Ethereum figure alone, and lists official
$RLS contracts on Ethereum, BNB Chain and Rayls. That only adds up if every
$RLS outside Ethereum is backed by
$RLS locked there.
Independently verified: it is. In the same run, at Ethereum block 26,342,082, the lock box held 1,550,237,385.346767 against 1,355,164,746.546035 on Rayls plus 195,072,478.111849 on BNB Chain, so 160.688883 spare (cut to the bridge's 6 shared decimals; the digits after that are dust from direct transfers).
But the bridge's own record comes up 40,000,000 short from both ends. On Rayls, all 310 mints sit inside bridge receives, and mints minus 205 burns land exactly 40,000,000 below supply. On Ethereum, 2,425 sends minus 948 receives land exactly 40,000,000 below Rayls plus BNB.
$RLS also moves directly between Rayls and BNB, so Ethereum only has to match their total.
Where the 40M came from
On 28 Apr 2026, two days before the Public Chain went live, one unlabeled account sent 10
$RLS, then 39,999,990, straight into the lock box with a plain transfer and no message. The 160.69 spare is 9 small direct transfers, all on 1 Dec 2025.
My analysis: that deposit backs 40,000,000
$RLS placed on Rayls at genesis. It counts as real backing because neither lock box is a proxy or has a withdraw or rescue function (11 write functions each, verified source). Tokens leave only through a bridge message, so the backing is as strong as the settings that decide which messages count.
What this adds: neither the docs I read nor the portal show that 40M skipped the bridge. In practice, if you build proof of reserves for a bridged token, reconcile balances and messages together. Balances alone hide the top-up. Messages alone call it a 40M hole.
Who sets those settings
Documented: LayerZero's docs say there should be one lock box per token, that the owner sets the peer, and that an owner or delegate can change the verifier (DVN) settings, which L2BEAT also notes. Each route here needs 3 required DVNs. On the BRL1 route, the owner on both chains and $BRL1.p's admin is one account with a single onchain signer. The
$RLS lock box is owned by a 4 of 6 Safe, while its LayerZero delegate is that same account.
Still unconfirmed
Rayls genesis state, since the public RPC has pruned it, and who controls the depositing account. A single onchain signer can still be an MPC or hardware key offchain, which I can't see from the chain. Onchain proof also stops at $BRL1 on Polygon; the reais behind it rest on the issuer's monthly attestations.
@RaylsLabs @x10xalex one question: is moving the BRL1 route and that delegate role under the 4 of 6 Safe planned, or does that account already sit behind MPC custody?
Checker, data and every tx are in the reply