- EigenLayer launched on the Ethereum mainnet this month.
- The protocol makes the economic security derived from Ethereum's underlying capital available to additional protocols.
What's the story
- With the mainnet launch, existing validators can opt in to operate and secure additional protocols, such as bridges between blockchains or the provision of data through oracles.
- These protocols, known as Actively Validated Services (AVS), define both the rewards and the penalties for validator misbehavior.
- At launch, EigenLayer released its own AVS called EigenDA, which ensures data availability for Layer 2 networks in a manner similar to Celestia.
Good to know
- In total, just under 15 billion euros in the form of Ethereum has been deposited into the EigenLayer protocol, currently making it the second-largest DeFi protocol behind Lido.
- With the mainnet release, essential functions such as validator payments by AVS and slashing — the loss of capital in the event of misbehavior — have not yet been introduced. These functions are expected over the course of the year.
- At present, providing capital is rewarded with EigenLayer points, which will likely result in receiving an airdrop of the EigenLayer token.
Translated from the German original, which is the authoritative version. Read the German version
