EigenLayer aims to enhance security for proof-of-stake initiatives and has amassed $15 billion in ether deposits.
Today is the deadline for claiming EigenLayer’s native tokens. Last month, the project revealed its distribution and “stakedrop” strategy.
The Eigen Foundation previously stated that once claimed, the tokens are non-transferable and will stay that way until the end of the third quarter. We expect the token transfer capability to be available by September 30, 2024.
Users, however, can start staking and delegating to EigenDA operators—who run the network’s actively certified native data availability solution—as soon as they claim their tokens today. To support EigenDA, users must assign their stake to an operator on the platform through the EigenLayer online site.
At launch, EigenDA will be the only AVS to use an EIGEN quorum. Other AVSs should come shortly, as the initiative stated.
By linking to a larger trust network, EigenLayer helps new proof-of-stake initiatives swiftly establish security, avoiding the difficulties associated with creating their own.
Since it started taking deposits in 2023, the platform has amassed approximately $15 billion in ether to protect different protocols. Data availability platforms, Oracle networks, consensus protocols, and other AVSs can all profit from EigenLayer’s security.
The Eigen token also introduced inter-subjective forking, a crypto-economic function that improves ether restaking to safeguard the AVS ecosystem.
This capability slashes actions that are impossible to identify objectively, like withholding data. In this framework, assigning Eigen tokens to AVS operators is critical. The first AVS to accept Eigen staking delegation will be EigenDA.
Eigen Tokenomics
The Eigen Foundation states that 1.67 billion Eigen tokens will be available at launch.
The network’s ecosystem and community will receive 45 percent of the token supply. We set aside 15% of this total for “stakedrops,” but only 5% became accessible during the first season (claims open today). We set aside 15% more for ecosystem growth and another 15% for community projects. On the other hand, we allocated 25.5% to early contributors and 29.5% to early investors.
The Eigen Foundation revised its strategy and awarded an extra 100 Eigen tokens to over 280,000 users who engaged with the platform before April 29 in response to early concerns about the minimum airdrop of 10 tokens awarded in the first season and their non-transferability. This translates to a minimum allocation of 110 tokens ($1,000) for a qualified user based on pre-market valuations.
Once token transferability initiates, the foundation has made it clear that investor tokens will vest. On pre-markets like Aevo and Hyperliquid, Eigen tokens with unrelated IOUs trade for between $8.7 and $9.3.