Ethereum Restaking Platform EigenLayer Launches EigenDA to Mainnet

On April 9, the EigenLayer team announced that the platform’s EigenDA, the first Available Validator Service, had launched on the Ethereum mainnet.

The team added that over 4.1 million ETH had been restaked on EigenLayer, and over the past few weeks, 70% of all new Ethereum validators restaked to the platform.

Moreover, restakers can now delegate their entire stake to an operator that has opted in to run available validator services like EigenDA.

Announcing: EigenLayer ♾ EigenDA Mainnet Launch pic.twitter.com/bTp5BfnsKE

— EigenLayer (@eigenlayer) April 9, 2024

Restaking Narrative Grows

Restaking allows users to stake the same ETH on both Ethereum and other protocols. Platforms such as EigenLayer leverage Ethereum’s validators and staked tokens, enabling smaller and newer blockchains to benefit from its security and trust system.

EigenLayer also faces a tradeoff between neutrality, allowing free market behavior, and decentralization, thus preventing dominance by a single staking provider.

Moreover, EigenDA provides hyper scalability, cost flexibility, and ease of integration for rollups. It aims to be the endgame solution for data availability on Ethereum.

Rollups can onboard to EigenDA mainnet after the operator set and delegations stabilize, it said.

“Over the next few weeks, we expect high operator turnover in the top 200 active set as new operators, delegations, and AVSs come online.”

In-protocol payments from AVSs to operators and slashing mechanisms are not included yet, but will be added later in 2023, the announcement noted.

An AVS is essentially a middleware or service that runs on top of the EigenLayer protocol to provide specific functionality. AVSs act as a layer between Ethereum’s execution layer and the various rollups, blockchains, and networks built on top of the L1 network.

EigenLayer total value locked is currently $13.3 billion, having skyrocketed 1,100% since the beginning of this year, according to DeFiLlama.

Ethereum Staking Outlook

The Ethereum staking ecosystem is extremely healthy, with around 27% of the total circulating supply currently staked.

This works out at 32.2 million ETH, according to Dune Analytics, worth around $112 billion at current spot prices. Ethereum also has just over a million validators, making it one of the most secure blockchains in the crypto space.

Lido remains the dominant liquid staking provider, with 29% of the total amount staked, or $33.2 billion worth of ETH.