What is EigenLayer
EigenLayer is a platform between LSD (liquidity staking derivatives) holders and AVS (active verification service) demanders, and it plays a key role in the emerging Restaking narrative. This system, similar to the impact of Brc20 on the Bitcoin ecosystem and new platforms, is seen as a "wealth code" for project creators in the era of one-key chain launch. Among these plans, Celestia is particularly popular with developers. EigenLayer's expected DA service, EigenDA based on Restaking, will provide low-cost, large-scale data services for L2s, with the potential to compete with Celestia.
With EigenLayer, Ethereum stakers can help secure multiple services by re-staking their staked ETH, choosing from a wide range of services at once and providing pooled security. This not only reduces the capital cost of staker participation, but also significantly increases the trust guarantee of a single service.
EigenLayer aims to solve the fragmented security problem of decentralized applications built on Ethereum. It enables any service, regardless of its composition, to leverage the collective security provided by Ethereum stakeholders, thereby fostering an environment of permissionless innovation and free market governance.
The project targets two main audiences:
Recipients: Earn rewards for helping operate and secure various networks and services built on Ethereum, such as the data availability layer, decentralized serializers, and bridge connections.
Active verification service providers: including third parties such as consensus protocols, data availability layers, virtual machines, keeper networks, oracle networks, cross-chain bridges, threshold encryption solutions, and trusted execution environments such as Chainlink.
Competitive Advantages of EigenLayer
When we talk about re-staking platforms like EigenLayer, it is easy to think of the liquidity guidance protocol Tokemak, because they both have the nature of "intermediary". Tokemak attracts users to stake assets on its platform to create a comprehensive token pool, and then guides the liquidity of the comprehensive token pool to other applications and protocols. The logic here is somewhat similar, but the difference is that EigenLayer is to do ETH re-staking, and the purpose is also different. EigenLayer distributes the re-staking assets to other applications for node verification services.
The attractiveness to stakers is also different. In EigenLayer, re-staking provides users with additional income, while Tokemak needs to attract stakers by distributing reward tokens or LP income. In addition, many DeFi protocols are also providing liquidity rewards, which leads to fierce competition for liquidity. At present, the secondary staking track is still a blue ocean.
EigenLayer Technical Features
Decentralization and security: With the help of EigenLayer re-mortgage mechanism, the data verification process is decentralized and the security is enhanced to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the data and prevent it from being tampered with.
Data availability and distributed storage: Using advanced KZG erasure coding technology, data is distributed and stored in multiple nodes, ensuring data integrity and accessibility even if some nodes fail.
Efficiency and low cost: It provides high-throughput data processing capabilities while reducing the data publishing costs of Rollup, making transactions more economical and efficient.
Example
EigenLayer supports many use cases including MEV management, data availability layer (DA), decentralized sequencer, light node bridging, and fast mode bridging.
Staking options provided by the testnet:
Liquidity Re-staking: Liquidity staking is a service that allows users to deposit their ETH into a staking pool and receive a liquidity staking token in return (such as provided by Lido and RocketPool). Stakers can deposit liquidity staking tokens into EigenLayer. There are different options here, such as ETH LP re-staking.
Native Re-staking: This option is for solo stakers/family stakers who want to natively re-stake their same staked ETH. When they stake within the Ethereum protocol, they need to specify a withdrawal credential, which is an account with the authority to withdraw the collateral. To participate in EigenLayer, you need to assign this credential to the EigenLayer smart contract. (L1 → EigenLayer)
team
EigenLayer can be said to be a project incubated by the University of Washington in the United States
The team is mainly located in Seattle, Washington. Founder Sreeram Kannan is a professor at the University of Washington and the director of the University of Washington Blockchain Laboratory. The first batch of team members came from this laboratory.
Financing
A total of two rounds of financing, totaling US$64.5 million
In August 2022, it was announced that the seed round raised $14.5 million in a seed round led by polychain+etherealvc, with participation from FigmentCapital, daofive, robotventures, P2Pvalidator and others.
The Series A financing was announced in March 2023, led by blockchaincap, raising US$50 million, with participation from ElectricCapital, polychaincap, hack_vc, FinalityCap, cbventures and others.
Development plan and roadmap
EigenLayer plans to launch its Phase 2 protocol in the fourth quarter of 2023, which will introduce a free market governance mechanism that allows stakers and the protocol to negotiate and reach consensus on the terms of re-staking, such as fees, rewards, slashing conditions, etc.
At the same time, the Operator testnet will be launched in the third quarter of 2023, the Active Verification Service (AVS) testnet will be launched in the fourth quarter, and the AVS mainnet is expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2024.
Re-staking data
According to the data on the EigenLayer official website, as of August 1, 2023, EigenLayer already has 10 supported modules and 55,670.57 ETH has been re-staked.
These modules include Eig enDA, The Graph, Chain link, tBTC, API3, Gravity Bridge, Threshold ECDSA, iExec, etc.
These modules cover data availability layer, oracle network, bridge, threshold encryption scheme, trusted execution environment and other types, demonstrating the wide applicability and compatibility of EigenLayer. These modules are also one of the best and most well-known projects in the blockchain field, demonstrating the high quality and high level of EigenLayer. These data show that EigenLayer has achieved certain achievements and influence, and also show that EigenLayer still has a lot of room for development and potential.
Token Information
Project Name:Dopamine
Token Name: $DOPE
Total Tokens: 500 million
Investment institutions: DAO Maker, Shima Capital, Gate, etc.
Release mechanism: 30% will be released after launch, 17.5% will be released every month, and the total release will be completed in 5 months
Expected listing: First quarter of 2024 (January-March)
Project website: https://www.web3intelligence.com/
Project Twitter: https://twitter.com/myDopamineApp
Exchange View Home Page
